End of the beginning

https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-is-this-the-moment-of-maximum-risk-137105

Interesting article about where we are currently at in the fight again Coronavirus.

As an aside, I get most of my information from The Conversation nowadays. Seems to be one of the only balanced news sources I can find.

 

Good article that explains where we are without pointing fingers at Trump or Boris. It’s all we need really, I’ve stopped watching the daily briefings because as soon as the journalists pipe up it’s just a fog of questions to try and trip up the panel as opposed to gaining the information contained in this article.

 

Unfortunately I’m not sure that the curve is flattening just that we are ignoring the elephant in the room.

 

I think this one shows where the bulk of the problem is. The mid age groups are showing signs of leveling off (although still clearly very bad numbers) the older ones are horrific.

 

Trip up or extract more pertinent information? I'll give it to the Tories, somehow or other they're convincing folk that journalists are wrong to want to know more detail. They'd be having a field day if Labour was in charge and failing to make provision for PPE or missing targets on testing, never mind the fact of the huge number of deaths.

 

I’m sure they would. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lack of objective information? Everyone has an angle they’re trying to push which makes it very difficult to know what to believe. I think article I’ve posted is from a website that is likely to be as objective as it comes, which was the point of this thread. I’m not trying to push one side of the argument or the other.

 

I'm no fan of a lot of newspapers but they are a necessary part of a democratic process. The government of the day should be held to account.

 

Is that because it's got inside certain care homes and once it's in its in?

 

The government have reacted slowly and seemed not to have joined the dots, we’ll never know if labour would have handled it any better. I’d much prefer it if the daily update was just that. Facts and pertinent information. Its turned into question time which isn't helpful.

 

Your continued defence of Boris, Trump et al seems to know no bounds. Have you thought about if they hadn’t been so incompetent, heartless, fekin stupid even,in the first place, they’d be nothing to ‘trip up’ If this was a Labour Govt handling it in exactly the same way you’d be having a field day and posting paragraphs upon paragraphs of damming posts, and rightly so.

 

Exactly this.

 

OK. WITHOUT the benefit of hindsight what would YOU have done differently if in charge bearing in mind virtually every country including Spain, Italy, America and now Russia have reported lack of PPE and most countries have not gone down or been ill equipped to go down the mass testing road.
Now is not the time for media and Social media to be politicising every decision. Post pandemic then serious questions need to be answered and plans made for the inevitable next pandemic. This was just a warning shot. However, the emphasis needs to be on lessons learned and not a witch hunt and blame game which does nothing going forward

Frankly I no longer care what the Labour supporting Socialist 'let's blame the Tories for everything' group (of which you obviously are one) believe about me. I do NOT consider the Govt of the day has managed the situation well but have done no better or worse than most other Govts in these times. They have all been caught with their pants down.
I have said before and repeat... 'if an organisation like the NHS had stockpiled the amount of equipment etc needed for this unprecedented level of crisis 'just in case', I guarantee the same people on here ranting about Govt lack of planning would have been compaining about wasting money since even a well resourced and staffed NHS would have had to make cuts in other areas just to support the logistics of sourcing, purchasing and storing huge amount of supplies to cover EVERY contingency. Sh*t happens and natures bites back. It is easiest thing in the World to sit there and criticise when you have no power far less so when you have to make crucial decisions in aa rapidly developing situation. Too many on here have done just that and continue to do so.

 

Not defending either, the government have let us down badly and Trump has gone rogue. Just calling for information without the inclusion of rabid jurnos trying to outdo each other. The daily update should be public information not the andrew marr show.

 

I got myself quite upset last night looking at the reality in care homes in the news for both residents and staff. Seems to me that a certain section if our society have been abandoned as collateral damage.

 

Most likely. We locked the entire county down and did nothing to protect those most vulnerable. The less at risk groups were in many cases more protected than the high risk ones.

 

I would have started cancelling events/locking down earlier and buying equipment that was fairly obviously going to be necessary.

The government was not "caught with its pants down". At all. A global pandemic has been seen as a real danger for some time. The government ran exercise Cygnus in 2016 and whilst the full results were hushed up it is reported that it exposed glaring holes in our response planning and shortages of equipment including PPE.

As well as findings from Cygnus the government had plenty of time whilst coronavirus was spreading and even had the benefit of being able to look into the future with countries that were ahead of us on the coronavirus calendar. It was forewarned by Cygnus that we were underprepared, so what did it do? **** all.

But yeah, let's not politicise it

 

‘Rabid journos outdoing each other ‘Twas ever thus, ask Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. However, Apart from ‘Labour’ circles it was deemed ok. However, the handling before and during of this Pandemic has and continues to, draw criticisms and condemnations from way beyond the journalistic community. The Govt’s poor handling of this means that any Public information they release will be received with a level of scrutiny and objectiveness that is above what was usually afforded, by all sections of the public. Incompetence and mistrust are not to be underestimated at anytime let alone in times like these.

 

I agree, but the OP’s point was an article that gave information without any political points scoring. That’s all I’m asking for, what I think we all need and what I think would be more useful. There are plenty of media platforms through which to challenge and criticize, the daily update should be public information nothing more. Its turned into something else which is why we’ve stopped watching once the jurnos start.

 

https://inews.co.uk/news/coronaviru...sity-covid-19-vaccination-latest-news-2552340

The Oxford vaccine has worked well on the monkeys it was tried on, which is a positive. The scientists know what they are doing and appear to be doing a great job. I have every faith that it will be successfully approved by September time like they have said, as they have history on vaccines before as they made the Ebola one. What I don't have faith in is the speed our government will get the whole of the UK vaccined so huge scale events can happen once more.

 

I wouldn’t bother responding to Tekkytyke , it’s all a Socialist conspiracy and 20,000 plus dead isn’t a political issue that Ministers making the decisions should be questioned about . Forget about Germany New Zealand Norway Greece , we should be measuring our performance against the worst affected and prepared countries in Europe and the world , not the best .