The Tories want you to think children don’t get the worst of the coronavirus.
The Tories want you to think the NHS is ready.
The Tories want you to think their testing regime is not insane.
The Tories want you to think everything they’re doing is scientifically driven.
The Tories want you to think they know better than the World Health Organisation.
The Tories want you to think they don’t need to close the schools.
You need to see this video.
Hear the story of Walsall woman Kathryn Grace and decide if our government is gambling with your and your children’s or grandchildren’s lives:
Video used with permission.
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What a sensible lady!
Despite what she said about the doctors and staff, if they have refused to test for CV, they are culpable for taking notice of instructions from above which they know are nonsense.
Nuff said , over to you Johnson …. whats that you say ,,, take it on the chin ,,,
Tell you what Johnson , you’d better beef up your security cos when thousands of folks are in this poor womans position , I’d be real concerned about showing my face in public .
I wish her son the very best of chance and luck to recover , there is imo NO none zero reasons not to be testing everyone , it just the cost that is all.
Rob the technology is there,the Chinese have it and have shown willing to share with other countries such as Cambodia were testing I am told takes under 3hrs ..We are now on lockdown here and the borders are closed…I am a recovering victim of the virus and feel lucky to be able to stay here for now.,with support from family and local Khmer relatives and friends.The culture here values the elderly and family is everything.It looks like we will not be coming back to the UK in May because of the risk of being stranded in Europe and not being allowed back in here in Cambodia.This maybe the 3rd World,but I would sooner sweat it out here than have to face the evil that has infested Britain,namely the Establishment Conservative and unionist party.Solidarity and recovery from the Johnson virus comrades.
They wanted to give the kid ibuprofen? Calpol for pneumonia?
Does ANYONE know what they’re doing ffs?
Oh, god they are trying to massage the numbers
Now isn’t that a surprise!
Link provided for video appears to have been taken down ?
OMG, do the medics realise that they could be reported to the Medical Council for professional misconduct for refusing to carry out a test against the recommendations of the World Health Organisation? Do they realise that they are gambling their futures in the profession?
I guess most of the doctors this woman has spoken with are junior doctors or SHOs.
Doctors in the front line need to find a back bone and exercise their professional judgement and do the test.
If they haven’t received instructions in writing them they aren’t disobeying an instruction, and if the instruction allows them to use their professional judgement in extreme cases they should use it and decide that cases such as this one, are extreme.
What I will advice anyone in a similar situation, stop with the stiff upper lip and feeling sorry for the doctor and demand to see the instruction in writing that prevents them for carrying out the test. So at the very least you know who is the moron responsible.
It is very possible that their isn’t a instruction in writing (they tend to be verbal) so don’t allow excuses and make crystal clear that you are willing to instruct a solicitor unless they do the test.
I don’t think that focusing on individual cases – no matter how distressing – and shouting ‘Wah!Wah!Wah! Aren’t the Tories nasty!’ is much of an alternative strategy, even given the issue of cuts to the NHS.
The one issue that needs attention is the testing regime, given WHO advice.
Otherwise, look to the science – which isn’t certain, but provides some basis for decisions. See :
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-analysis/news–wuhan-coronavirus/
I posted an additional useful reference relating to strategy yesterday :
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/
Both of these suggest courses of action that are credible – particularly in not precipitately jumping into strict general quarantine measures. The Imperial College research also covers a decision over school closure.
No – I’m not sanguine, being in a high risk group and needing hospital support – but that’s why I’m interested in making the best of a bad job instead of constantly repeating what a bad job it is. I would prefer a focus on what practical additional measures might be helpful given the situation.
The reasons for not closing schools is to keep NHS workers in their jobs. See page 15/16 of the latest report: closing schools is one of the best means of reducing speed of the spread.
In my view they need to conscript all hospitals, services, doctors and nurses from all private organisations and put them to work in the NHS. In such a situation no one should be able to pay for treatment: if NHS services are to be rationed it should affect all equally!
… and another :
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus#what-do-we-know-about-the-risk-of-dying-from-covid-19
RH I hear they are desperate for more posters on The Guardian. Won’t you give them a try? …Please
I appreciate your anxieties, Paul – but that is a really gormless response.
Why don’t you just try reading what I’ve posted and then respond? You don’t have to self-isolate your brain.
I have read (some) of your posts and that’s why I’m do think you’d be better appreciated on the Guardian and less abused. Or the Telegraph comments? They are quite restrained in a High Tory way; they’d rather like the ‘Johnson is OK really’ line and especially the Left is all shit theme. Or the Mailonline? You’d reach a wider audience!
If you read my comments, and the referenced articles, you certainly don’t show any sign of comprehending them.
I know that Skwawkbox itends to be more therapy than information, and as such is currently largely irrelevant in terms of understanding the situation. And just endlessly banging on about the Tories is a lot easier than trying to get to grips with things in terms of the science – which science isn’t just a Tory plot if it doesn’t gel with preconceptions.
… if only in terms of variety, a bit of perspective would make a change.
RH its not difficult to see why France was overrun in the war ,Collaborators come in all groups and classes,but they all of them have the same mindset of toleration of the enemy.You are obviously concerned and maybe frightened but supporting this cruel and greedy non government will get you nowhere.
We know that South Korea and China are the countries that has carry out the highest number of test and both are the countries that appear to have managed to slow down the advance of Covid19. Hence, testing those with symptoms is a very good measure, the WHO recommends it.
This individual case, highlights the needs for the collective approach to test everyone that exhibits symptoms.
RH , how can you be so dismissive of a frightened woman and her child Wha wha wha His that the correct way for over educated Archies to respond? You need to look closer at your silly response,not everyone is experienced in schoolboy behaviour.
RH is one of those collaborators who when it’s all over (Tories Never to Get Government again) he’ll be telling everybody how he (or they) was with SB and had always opposed ‘nasty Tories’. It may be he’s scared witless but I suspect he’s just an ordinary old RW Troll.
Joseph & Paul – You are both spouting incredibly unintelligent rubbish, not ‘socialism’, which implies a degree of intelligence.
Your pompous self-righteousness, Joseph is a product of sheer inability to grasp things – not insight.
Only a total dimwit would interpret my remarks as being dismissive of the woman’s experience. My strictures were aimed at the constant exploitation by Skwawkbox of such experiences as a justification for tediously repetitive bellyaching about the Tories – as opposed to analysis. If I want bog-paper jounalism, I’ll buy the Mail.
..and Paul … even if you’re in a difficult situation – which I appreciate – shouting incoherently at people like a hallucinating drunk on a street corner isn’t going to solve any problem.
I thought I was being completely coherent!
I hope not, for your sake Paul.
If that was your idea of ‘coherent’ – with all the shite about ‘colaborators’ and other wild fantasies etc. – you’ve probably already got a significant fever, and are coughing rather than discussing 🙂
RH, even if you were right about the Skwawkbox – and I dispute that you are – MSM propaganda convinces by constant repetition of the Tory line, not logical analysis.
In fact if there’s a herd immunity to anything, it’s logical analysis.
They have realised they were wrong. New report:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
Nobody is saying it but Johnson has made a huge error that will cost many lives. “Take it on the chin” had such a glamorous British tone about it. “We’ll fight them in the A+E and on the wards, we are Brits and won’t die”. Except we will, in large numbers. What lunatics (Swinton, remember her?) wanted an early GE based on Brexit? Imagine if it was still to come!
I’m ‘high risk’ and in my 70’s. I live with my wife and son who is travelling daily into Central London along the ‘Corridor of Death’ aka the Piccadilly tube out of Heathrow with its connections to the World’s plague centres and no checking on arrival. Three times an hour this one train imports the virus into the heart of the capital. When I came down with a hacking cough at the weekend I naively assumed I would get test to see what I should advise my family to do. I soon learnt that despite my health (it’s quite a few winters now that I haven’t been hospitalised for respiratory or heart problems) because I hadn’t had contact with a known carrier or been to a place like N Italy a test was impossible. One nurse (?) I spoke to said it was ‘ridiculous’ and pointed out that even NHS staff weren’t necessarily tested. She also privately suggested it was simply because they didn’t have the tests available and were afraid of the admittedly high cost of mass testing. I’m sure she’s right; do it on the cheap and boast it’s the Best in the World is Policy now. And that can’t change because they don’t have the tests or the beds or ventilators. No testing has an important consequence; if you die before testing then your death will be recorded as the major underlying illness that most over 70’s have eg heart failure, it will enable Johnson to say our death toll was lower than X, Y, Z and that proves how marvellous and spiffing we Brits are (well, not the browns and blacks obviously).
I am also in the ‘high risk’ category. I therefore certainly don’t underestimate real problems.
To clarify : I totally agree with you about more testing being essential and the need for more ventilators *quickly*
I also reckon that we are reaching the point where it will be necessary to close schools, and also to formally limit social gatherings and institutions.
That said, the general course being followed in terms of social action is one based on good science, and makes sense in terms of spreading the peak. Italy, France, Germany and Spain are not models of alternative effectiveness, and, as I’ve said, current and actual herd stupidity is more of a threat than the notional pursuit of herd immunity.
I’ve read today that a significant issue the UK is trying to avoid is the ‘second wave’. Lockdown means (as Chinese officials have said in Wuhan) 95% of the population have no immunity so if, as likely the virus reappears back to square one. In 1919 the second flu wave killed 4 times as many as the first apparently.
The schools are closing themselves and kids are striking rather like they did over Climate Change. That is encouraging. There is a shift away from just accepting ‘rules’ from the Centre, not surprising when the policy is fronted by Johnson who seems totally out if his depth still relying on a bit of rhetoric to see him through. Yesterday he was gaping with disbelief at one stage that the old tricks of the School and Uni Debates weren’t working, if America falls into anarchy (well policed although it might be!) then Socialised Medicine could an election while the Administration end up aping Chinese Communism which is after all proving to be Top Dog. Britain of course will remain an archaic aristocratic elected Dictatorship wedded to those glorious reactionary days of 1815- 25. Whether the workers will squeeze anything out of a government that doesn’t deign to notice the plight of the very poor is questionable. Whether the population will continue to defer to the Posh Boys will be interesting.
I don’t know if anyone followed the Health and Social Care Select Committee today – interviewing three of the top health bureaucrats on the Coronavirus crisis ? Chaired by the ghastly Hunt of course ! Strangly, only the Tories on the Select Committee were present for this vital interrogation – not the FOUR Labour MPs or SNP MP (did some lose their seats on December 12th ? ) To be fair to the ghastly Hunt, responsible directly for much of the current under-resourcing of the NHS, he asked some very pertinent questions of the four bureaucrats – to receive shifty, waffly, answers as usual.
One throwaway line from one of the top bureaucrats, after explaining that very soon ALL non-urgent NHS treatment would cease , to focus entirely on the looming coronavirus disaster- was that ‘of course people could still pay to get their hip operations, etc done privately’ ! Predictably this wasn’t picked up on by the Tories on the Committee – but this suggests that in the midst of the worst global plague since the 1918 influenza pandemic, with the UK facing up to 500,000 deaths, and up to 5 million needing intensive care – that the private sector might still be able to offer the well off private operations – inevitably serviced by the moonlighting specialist consultants who also staff our NHS !
One can clearly see that the privatising fanatics who nowadays occupy all the top positions in the state healthcare NHS and wider sections of the bureaucracy in England, are, taking the lead of their political masters, seriously viewing this ever-worsening disaster as a potential opportunity – to drive yet more people to the private sector and private health insurance, !
Well Plain Citizen, this isn’t 1919 only a year after 4 years of war and the resultant decline in people’s immunity from poor diets at home, active service at the front and many thousands still recovering from wounds, not to mention the lack of medical knowledge, equipment and expertise compared with today’s medical, scientific and technological advances.
Furthermore, by the time a second wave might arrive the world’s scientists will have discovered a lot more about the disease and almost certainly have developed better ways to manage the complications arising, even without a vaccine being ready for use.
So it’s hardly likely to be back to square one, which I thought would be quite obvious to anyone with a bit of common sense.
The accusation is tests are being denied to massage the numbers, seems a good question to raise at PMQ’s
If people die to save Brexit for the cheap and nasty Tory party then I agree with Rob they wont be able to show their faces in public
Without doubting anything Kathryn says, it’s more likely cock up than conspiracy with our just in time global economy and systemic under investment in the NHS over 10 years
We need an answer for sure because one way or the other there is a cover up going on
The lack of testing means the real death toll will never be known. The UK figure will be a “jolly good show” illustrating how wonderful we are – and a pure shot in the dark.