Just on the bike racing theme, I cant believe how empty the weekends are now , no bsb , no wsb no ama and no motogp , I didn't realise how much bike racing I watched . Had a blood test today in one of our major hospitals , went on the Gsxr, roads empty, hospital empty and in and out in 7 mins. Nice day for a ride though. 2015 4.4 AB
GSXR 1000 K5
R1 1998

It actually makes very little sense to be fully prepared for any one specific event of this scale. This is because to be prepared for this means you logically have to be prepared for countless other causes of socio-economic meltdown. You can never predict every cause. And even if you could/should your spending would go through the roof preparing for every improbable cause. In fact it would unaffordable.

So you can never be fully prepared. Instead you can have generic responses in place, for example, dealing with the press, volunteer programmes, foreign relations, ability do fast track laws, this type of thing.

In my house we’re going stir crazy. But only 11 weeks to go Very much encouraged by Boris & Charlie ‘coming out’. Maybe Piers Morgan will be next.

And if Trump doesn’t get this then I consider it proof there is no god.  L405 P400e Autobiography (MY2020)... Silicon Silver / Espresso

It’s not about being ‘fully’ prepared but having an action plan, most crisis, whether it’s a lack of power, water, food or a pandemic have very similar controls and actions from the off.

Dealing with messages like lock down and social distancing should not be new and this wasn’t the time to try something untried and tested like ‘herd immunity’.

Also this pandemic started in November last year, in January the WHO said prepare, at this point we new it was a respiratory disease. The NHS was already in crisis from 10 years of cuts, money should have been rushing in, orders for basics like PPE should have been the first off the block.

Again we were told by the UK gov. repeatedly over the last couple of years the UK had spent 4.4 billion on being prepared for Brexit and the inevitable supply issues etc... this is a supply issue and we can clearly see we were not prepared for food or medical supplies or any action plans. What’s going to happen in January 2021.

Boris’s decision to not join the EU buying ventilators because in his words ‘We are not in the EU’ is criminal... this had nothing to do with politics, Brexit... it’s a crisis we needed help with and the EU has the biggest buying power and best procurement channels, it should have been a given. It’s the same with test kits and PPE.

Now Boris has a vested interest in helping the NHS and getting the medical supplies in quickly, let’s hope he place the orders soon.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing - at what point were you certain the UK would lock down like this ? November last year ?

Herd immunity is not a new thing - it's the desired end state - its where enough people have built resistance to stop the wild spread.

The UK government have been clear from the outset IMHO - and brutally honest - it's about flattening the curve until herd immunity is achieved and trying not to overwhelm the NHS. It's too late to try to contain the spread completely, so all you can do is slow it down.

Slow it down too much and you just prolong the whole thing - it needs to spread - just at a rate that we can manage. It's a tough message but Boris has been delivering it - people will die, lots of them - that's somewhat unavoidable.

I'm not a Boris fan & didn't vote for him, but find it hard to lay the blame on him - I think he's actually stepped up quite well and the UK are in as good a position as any country and better than most (except maybe South Korea )

Alistair

I under stand your point of view on the ‘herd immunity’ but you have glossed over Brexit billions spent being prepared, the lack of action over weeks on buying and supplying urgently needed PPE which the uk gov. Kept promising was in stock in warehouse(s) and the decision to not join the EU buying ventilators

Hindsight is one thing but not going into a lock down for over two weeks while nearly every other country and the WHO were tell the gov. To lock down even telling the, if they didn’t they would lock down boarders to the UK and even when this was implemented they put to many holes in the narrative for people to understand so the lockdown was ignored on mass for a while? Clear, concise, simple message should have been given, from this stand point you can always then adjust to allow other groups out of lock down as required.

Why were the emergency powers only discussed and put into until law last week?

Why were stocks and capacity to manufacture PPE and ventilators in the UK not taken up, the companies contacted the gov. With offers and weeks later still orders??

It’s all been too slow and poorly rolled out. Cost cutting and Brexit has been the total focus of the gov. For the last 10 yrs to the point where they have become ineffectual.

I expected more from the government. They are doing a job, granted a hard job but they are doing blindly, they are acting like a start up company of newly graduated students struggling with even basic planning and management issues.

I agree on Brexit - I was as far on the remain side as possible - and couldn't bring myself to vote for Boris.

On pretty much everything else I fail to see what more could reasonably have been done in the timeframe. Where were supplies going to be bought from ?

Ventilators - I'd rate the UK chances of building them as higher than the EU average - so not sure that joining any sort of buying consortium would be a good thing - but I haven't really read much about that & could be totally wrong.

For the rest - only time will tell - my personal opinion is that some of the messaging was left deliberately vague so as to change things at the desired target pace - you can't say only 20% of the population can move around - but you can leave it vague enough that only 20% do.....

If the NHS can cope - then things have gone well - once there are soldiers on hospital doors adhering to an 'ethics guide' about who can be admitted - as some countries already have - then things could have been done better.....

We all have different standards, perspectives and rationales.... but I am enjoying the debate as everyone is keeping it from being personal.

As time goes on some off us will change our stance, some will double Down but hopefully we will see the truth and will learn from it.

My biggest hope is the MHS comes out stronger and gets the public and gov. fully behind it but in the meantime finds enough capacity to cope and limit the loss of life.

My passion is driven from caring for my elderly and infirm parents and in-laws, all in their 80’s and with serious underlying illnesses, so when I see blasé comments, unjustified praise and dangerous acts, they perk my interest.

Some people’s selfishness, ignorance and stupidity is literally tantamount to manslaughter. I don’t want to loose my parents because someone wanted to go to the park or go out with their mates to the pub.

Just out of interest Alistair, what do you think the UK gov. did with the 4.4 billion spent on Brexit?

I think linking Brexit and the current crisis is a distraction. Whatever planning was undertaken for Brexit will have had little impact on whether we were prepared or not for the pandemic. Two very different issues both in scale and impact. And whilst £4.4billion is a large number for most people, in the scale of government spending it's miniscule. 2017 4.4 SDV8 Autobiography
2012 4.4 TDV8 Westminster - Gone, but not forgotten

I’m not seeing this picture you’re painting ur20v.

2 countries lead the way in both financial and advisory contributions to WHO and that’s the USA and the UK.

The NHS which is the only really free at point of delivery health service in the developed world is regarded by many as the best health service in the world. League tables are always to going to be skewed when every citizen of a country is entitled to receive free health care irrespective of their financial status.

As mentioned earlier regarding Ventilators, the numbers would have been crunched and I suspect the decision was made that we would be in a far better position sourcing them in house.

A 2000 bed temporary hospital set up in 4 days and a 4000 bed temporary hospital possibly set up by next week would suggest the UK is doing better than some to get on top of this crisis.

I don’t agree, the Brexit planning and ‘operation yellow hammer’ were all about the break down of supply chains as the boarders closes and import checks are slowing product movement’s and how the NHS would coupe, we were told the money was spent on planning and stock piling essential medical supplies including PPE, turns out they did neither? Yellow Hammer also went into public unrest and empty shelves in supermarkets.

I believe we ‘should’ have been in a better position due to Brexit and Brexit planning if it was actually carried out. Surely these ‘plan’s’ could have been easily remodeled for the current crisis and stockpiles accessed?

The 4.4 billion would have been much better spent on the NHS direct.

Alistair wrote:

If those stats are based purely on numbers - then things are even worse for Spain as their population is a fair bit lower (46m) than the UK (66m), France (66m) & Italy (60m)

UK peak in 2 weeks seems to be what is being reported. The bigger question is whether it spikes again when quarantine is eventually eased off.

ur20v wrote:

Just out of interest Alistair, what do you think the UK gov. did with the 4.4 billion spent on Brexit?

I have no idea - legal fees most likely

I'm sure we could have prepared better - at a cost - and if it hadn't happened, everyone would be moaning about the money wasted..... no win situation

GraemeC wrote:

Link below is to the original 16th March Imperial College report which drastically changed the governments response - 26 pages but its well worth a read
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-...3-2020.pdf