The virus has exposed the utter shallowness of a government elected on a single issue which itself was based on a lie. They are so out of their depth that it actually isn't funny any more. They're reacting to mass deaths with a PR exercise.

But think how much worse it could have been, Jeremy Corbyn couldn't even decide what to do about the most important political decision this country has had to face. Any public health decisions would have been interminably delayed by his indecisiveness.

Well that is one highly partisan view.

The other is that a party with a commitment to the NHS and which isn't driven by a single dogmatic issue - to implement a hard Brexit - might have been less distracted, better prepared and more likely to value the "key workers" the Conservatives have suddenly discovered. :rolleyes:

To be fair, Corbyn's promise for free universal broadband looks like something that would be useful right now.

She got her figures from Diane Abbott.

It has been very revealing seeing the comfortable class politicians trying to work out why their magic words aren’t working.

Never mind, as you point out his subordinates clearly have already learned all he has to teach.

And wouldn’t have hesitated to use the power of the state in place of market forces.

I wonder if any of the nurses, cleaners and so on informed him they were immigrants and wouldn’t have been here under his new immigration policies?

Please don't, I'm really no fan of Diane Abbott, I don't think she should ever have made the front bench, but the way that screw up was run and run was just ridiculous. A couple of Tory MPs including Michael Gove made a similar mistakes with figures around the same time and none of them received a fraction of the attention, certainly none of them are still being brought up now.

They are being clever with Boris. He is getting all good press while his Cabinet **** things up.
He will come out smelling of roses at the end of this.

It is interesting how it's being framed by the media and seemingly the public. Yesterday the UK saw the highest death toll in a single day of any country in the entire world, other than the US. But the reporting was about Johnson walking.

And just compare how the UK of today is being talked about compared with Italy of two weeks ago. They were then almost exactly where we are now.

I've heard of Conservative MPs talking about bringing in free broadband for all.

I think there are a number of partisan comments. Whatever your view on Brexit (and I was opposed to it), this is irrelevant to the ability of the government to deal with the current crisis. It would be best to deal with the question about failures or successes of the government in dealing with the pandemic on an objective basis, not on a basis that because someone has floppy hair, a beard, is left wing or right wing pro or anti Brexit they must have made a mistake or would have discovered a cure for Covid-19.

Do you really believe that given the UK general election was on 12 December, the outbreak of novel coronavirus infection was first reported on 31 December, and the first cases in the UK were identified on 12 February, that a Corbyn government would really have been more prepared? I think any realistic discussion has to leave aside party political issues and deal with the fact that this is not a political issue. Many of the issues are long term structural issues such as the loss of manufacturing capability for e.g. PPE and diagnostics. This is not something any government could have dealt with between the election and the pandemic. There may be an argument that a UK out of the EU is in a stronger position to ensure there is a UK based manufacturing capacity than it is in the EU when free trade rules mean the UK government cannot protect a UK manufacturing base as opposed to elsewhere in the EU. Even though Germany was able to ban export of medical goods despite being within the EU.

Gods eye view right there Planigale.
Thank you for extreme objectivity.

I see in UK there are also fans of incompetent government - even if they are on job that is hit hardest by their moronic response to COVID-19. Now that's some trumpistas-like blind dedication!

A Corbin lead government wouldn’t have been wasting time talking to Dyson.

He had to be rewarded for his Brexit support.

And I'm sure that gratitude will last right up until the moment someone suggests raising NHS staff pay...

UK rejects an offer by 21 Sudanese Hospital doctors to help country with Coronavirus.

The doctors, stranded in UK due to travel restrictions, offered to help NHS but Home Office hostile environment policies means their offer has been rejected.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c...-nhs-50bpxw20j

Still going on

Police officer who arrested and threatened to pepper spray man ‘delivering food to vulnerable relatives’ under investigation

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a9460831.html

That is your opinion, you may be correct, but would you care to give an example to justify your opinion or is this to be a fact free discussion?

Trying to at least put in an issue to discuss rather than the partisan sniping.

Why is this a waste of time?

The article is behind a paywall, but it may be more to do with the fact that they are not licensed to practice in the UK? This would not be anything to do with a Home Office immigration policy.

... on Twitter, so it can be seen by the largest possible number of people who didn't work at the ICU.

Because they were not using that time to talk to manufacturers of ventilators , indeed some of those manufacturers couldn’t even get to speak to people in government about how they could increase production. Every minute speaking to Dyson could have been spent speaking to people who could and now are providing actual machines.

It is one of the best speeches he has given and I on this occasion do not doubt his sincerity.

It is worth remembering that the deaths announced are the deaths reported on that day, not the number who died that day. So I assume you are referring to 11/4, when 823 deaths were announced, 330 of which occurred on 9/4, 120 on 10/4, the rest on other dates. Currently the day with the highest number of deaths is 8/4 with about 710 deaths. Deaths have levelled out consistent with hitting the peak due to social distancing impacting (fits with prediction following onset 16/03 that their would be a lag of about 3 weeks before we saw an impact on the death rate).
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-...te-12th-april/

ETA highest daily death in Italy 919, Spain 961,

Penlon the only UK manufacturer of ventilators has been talked to and has increased manufacturing, but without bringing in new manufacturers they have a very limited ability to respond, car companies e.g. RR are cooperating by contributing to Penlon vents, but I know some posters here were very negative about motor manufacturers being able to contribute. There is a nice web site that I linked to earlier where any manufacturer can see the requirements the government has for a ventilator, and can submit their business plan, just as Dyson did.

What would your opinion be if the government had refused to speak to Dyson and he went off and produced 10,000 ventilators for other countries elsewhere in the world? What will be your opinion about whether this was a waste of time if Dyson does start churning out ventilators? If someone is offering to help, the only waste is in not talking to them and rejecting them out of hand.

It's about quality control and assurance. If the situation was more desperate, and this disease was much more deadly, maybe people wouldn't worry too much about those ventilators killing the people they are supposed to help. More generally speaking, the same thing applies to all kinds of equipment and supplies.

I think blaming BJ in his role as prime minister for the shortages is stupid simply because there's no way he could have done anything about the situation before it occurred. He's not psychic. At most he shares a collective responsibility with most of the conservative party for refusing to increase funding for the NHS, which is bad enough.

If I can I'd like to limit this to covid-19 issues rather than the broader politics of health service funding. My take on this is that even if the NHS funding had been better, most likely the funding would have gone to improved mental health and community care (cinderella areas at present), perhaps funding expensive therapies for cancer and orphan disease. More midwives. Improved funding of nursing homes and social care. All very good in their own right, but of no value here and now. I would argue that even a better funded NHS managed by a socialist inspired government (as there is in Scotland) would not have the resources in place to deal with the current issues. Italy has roughly double the hospital beds as compared with the UK and ran into problems.

The thing is we are currently repurposing equipment that is not designed for the purpose intended, so Dyson Covents are likely to be better than what we are currently doing which is burning anaesthetic equipment or home vents into the ground and replacing them when they overheat after running solidly for longer than they are intended for (so we have a protocol for twice daily ventilator rotation). Personally I am really keen to see the first Dyson Covent turn up. We are monitoring these patients so if the vent fails we'll know; if it lasts a few weeks it is better than a few days.

And if we had developed a vaccine 2 months ago? We can all play what if after the fact. And that is simple not the case. The reports at the time had quotes from the companies. They were not contacted. Dyson was listened to because of his paid access to those in power.

One thinks your claimed objectivity is slipping!

Who has blamed Johnson for the shortages of ventilators? What his government is being held responsible for are his actions once it was known we would need more.

This is a skeptic site so which UK manufacturer of ventilators were quoted as not having had discussions with HMG. I am calling you out on this!

ETA The only ones I remember were manufacturers of circuits not really an issue.

I have praised Cuba's response to the international coronavirus crisis a couple of times in this thread: here, here and here.

But unfortunately woo has now entered into the picture: Aplican fármaco homeopático como profilaxis ante la COVID-19 (Granma.cu, April 6, 2020)

Google Translate gives a good impression of what this is all about, and I hope that it is true that it will be used only as one of many prophylactics, "a personas que no necesariamente presenten síntomas de la covid-19," instead of replacing actual prophylactics or in the treatment of actual Covid-19 patients.
However, it worries me that Cuba now seems to have a "Department of Natural and Traditional Medicine of the Ministry of Public Health."

It is interesting to read the comments section, and I appreciate this comment from "frank", who laments that giving credit to the pseudoscience of homeopathy will only serve to discredit Cuban medicine:

This is your favourite strawman argument, isn't it?!

Maybe you should keep a track of the news because the UK is certainly not the only place that has a shortage of medicinal equipment and supplies nor is it the only one having significant problems rectifying that.

During a crisis you are supposed to restrain your urge to play the blame game until it's well since over. At this stage i find it really hard to believe that you have solid evidence that the British government, let alone BJ personally, can squarely be held accountable for the lack of ventilators.

Isn't that whole "herd immunity" failtastic "plan" enough to assess competency of that government?

BS. Even if there wouldn't be funding specifically for epidemic/care for patients with infectious diseases/whatever, healthcare would be in better shape in general. And if someone were competently managing it before, he would competently manage it right now.

But as things are now, enjoy your "burning anaesthetic equipment or home vents into the ground and replacing them when they overheat". You can thank your government for that wonderful opportunity.

Because companies that produce actual medical equipment actually exist and someone would thought they would be contacted first and producer of crappy vacuum cleaners last?

Said every apologist for people that screwed up ever. :rolleyes: