I don't really understand what this current government have actually done to warrant your constant benefit of the doubt.

 

They have lied, they lie, and they will continue to.

 

@1256216783314399236

 

Because I don't know what people are expecting, some sort of Jesus Christ miracle.. turning water in to wine. The 100,000 target was bonkers in the first place, first rule of any good worker is you under promise and over deliver. But regardless of the nitty gritty it appears we have the capacity, so when you consider we barely had scope for 1,000-2,000 tests at the start of April, to scale up the operation in a month is pretty impressive. HSJ understands, so where's the proof? Not saying they are not wrong it's just sometimes people just have unreasonable expecations. Every government in the world will doing all sorts of data manipulation most likely.

No other government is so Brexshit minded that it refuses ro enter beneficial schemes and gives contracts to unproven companies because they are government donors :)

No other government is so Brexshit minded that it refuses ro enter beneficial schemes and gives contracts to unproven companies because they are government donors :)

 

I'm not saying that's right, let's be honest, a big part of the reason we intially reacted so slowly to the situation is the Cabinet was driven by the idelogy of Brexit. It's a valid critique of the government. Their vendor choices and processes is something which is very questionable.

I don't really understand what this current government have actually done to warrant your constant benefit of the doubt.

 

They have lied, they lie, and they will continue to.

 

@1256216783314399236

This is also a government that counts a single glove and a packet of tissues as an item of PPE.

The evil aristocracy is now claiming that there are 100 000 tests per day. Bull! All they do is lie. We now live in an authoritarian one party state.

The evil aristocracy is now claiming that there are 100 000 tests per day. Bull! All they do is lie. We now live in an authoritarian one party state.

 

Michael, we had an election and the Tories won. We live in a one party state because the previous Labour leadership team failed to connect with the general public. Hopefully, going forward the new Labour leadership will be able to connect again and make for a more even balance.

 

122,000 tests is pretty impressive. I see they have admitted about 40,000 of these were home tested kits. And by law and averages you can probably suggest 30-40% of these will never see the light of day in a labratory. But like I said above in a previous post, it's pretty impressive to scale up the capacity in 3-4 weeks from where we were. I work for a food manufacturer and it's not easy to scale up in a short amount of time.

Michael, we had an election and the Tories won. We live in a one party state because the previous Labour leadership team failed to connect with the general public. Hopefully, going forward the new Labour leadership will be able to connect again and make for a more even balance.

 

122,000 tests is pretty impressive. I see they have admitted about 40,000 of these were home tested kits. And by law and averages you can probably suggest 30-40% of these will never see the light of day in a labratory. But like I said above in a previous post, it's pretty impressive to scale up the capacity in 3-4 weeks from where we were. I work for a food manufacturer and it's not easy to scale up in a short amount of time.

It really isn't impressive at all. Given the way they have come up with this figure, they could have held back a load of testing kits before sending them out yesterday. It is impossible to trust anything this government says. That is not a good position to be in at a time like this. Once again. a Labour government that had the gall to try these tricks would have been absolutely crucified by the press.

Yes, 122000 tests are impressive. But they had to fiddle the figures to get there.

 

THEY arbitrarily set the target in the first place.

 

THEY said that they would be doing 100k a day by the end of April.

 

Now, having fiddled the figures, they're crying ONE day's testing of 100k as some kind of great victory?

 

No, just stop. IF they held their hands up, I'd be absolutely fine. But at every step of the way, EVEN WHEN IT IS NOT IMPORTANT - they reach immediately for lies, spin, anything to make themselves sound good, and damn the actual truth of the situation. It's astounding. A cabinet of compulsive liars, and a population who - no disrespect meant, because it's human nature to try and see the good in people, but still - who each and every time by and large come away with faith that this time, for the first time, despite the previous litany of lies, they've pulled it out of the bag and made good on their promise.

 

This is exactly what they rely on - the public's goodwill to believe what they say they are actually doing. They are a group made up of the kind of adults who were kids who lied to big themselves up and make themselves sound more than what they were, and they have the tools of a compliant media who want to keep up public morale onside to keep doing so even now as adults in their 40s and 50s.

 

Which is well and good, but, we should WANT as a population the security of knowing that the government, those in charge, are ACTUALLY making the best possible use of our resources in order to beat this thing, not shirking their duties, missing obvious tactics, and then trying to flub that ummm actually that didn't happen and it only SEEMED like we were going to miss the target that we set ourselves, honest!

 

IF they can continue to deliver 100k tests a day, then THAT is good and I will be satisfied. This is real life - and that's what's required for us to progress. NOT by hook and crook doing 122k in one day, and then dropping back down to 40k and 50k the very next day because "target achieved, the public are happy". This situation is not about spinning and twisting the figures to shut people up, it is about DOING the NECESSARY work consistently.

Edited May 1, 20205 yr by fl00zy*

They’ve fudged the figure and it’s still underwhelming. Why has this capacity taken so long to unlock? They’re a good month behind Germany in hitting that number and they’ve not even actually hit it.

 

Nah fam. Fed up of them getting a pass for outright neglect and then putting in a half arsed job to rectify something they should have done at the start and everyone falls over to praise them. Awful.

Cases in France have dropped heavily only 168 new cases today and 218 deaths. The situation has really improved in Italy too but France has seen by far the biggest improvement.

Edited May 1, 20205 yr by Alex P

Rachel Johnson on LBC tonight asking listeners whether they agree that lockdown has been too successful. I have heard it all now.

If they have the healthcare system to afford that, then yes, but it is very risky and a strategy that I wouldn't condone repeating should it overload them - and we have seen that you can control this thing far easier with lower numbers. This is the whole point of flatten the curve.

 

Also, I'm sorry, but deaths as a result of a lockdown versus virus deaths are nowhere near comparable. The former can be prevented with moral government policies, redistributing wealth to ensure no one starves, or creating aid packages. It is within human control. Deaths as a direct result of the virus are an inevitability while there is no vaccine, so while there is none, measures should be taken to reduce infection.

 

That is an extreme hypothetical with New Zealand, but that still puts them in a better position than most other countries, as when the virus does come back when the lockdown is lifted, guess what happens? Straight back into lockdown and quite possibly even more restrictive.

 

A report put out by the Swedish Public Health Agency a couple of days ago estimates that the effective rate of infection in Sweden as of the 25th April was 0.85.

 

https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/content...tion-number.pdf

The thing is — most people would have been satisfied with increasing the testing to 70k+ a day. It's a step in the right direction, but of course, they set arbitrary goals and had to manipulate the numbers to reach them. They rely on a complicit media who are more than willing to spin whatever message they want. It's beyond frustrating, especially when the stakes are so high.

Cases in France have dropped heavily only 168 new cases today and 218 deaths. The situation has really improved in Italy too but France has seen by far the biggest improvement.

I am living for these updates :clap:

Less than 100 new hospitalisations in The Netherlands as well

 

Both Belgium and NL are starting to kick the regular healthcare kn higher gear as well :clap:

I have a question in regards to the new normal that they refer to and it may be a stupid question.

 

As a single person living alone and the fact they are saying social distancing could go on to the end of the year, will people be able to meet friends and family I really do not understand what level of social distancing is being implied for the foreseeable. This is a concern of mine that causes so many sleepless nights.

I have a question in regards to the new normal that they refer to and it may be a stupid question.

 

As a single person living alone and the fact they are saying social distancing could go on to the end of the year, will people be able to meet friends and family I really do not understand what level of social distancing is being implied for the foreseeable. This is a concern of mine that causes so many sleepless nights.

 

It's all guesswork right now. I would suspect once we have the contact tracing in place we will be allowed to visit friends and family again. But who knows really. I can't see a way where we are banned from visiting friends and family for much longer as eventually people will just rebel (already happening). I think it will just be mass gatherings that are banned, but I don't really know.

I have a question in regards to the new normal that they refer to and it may be a stupid question.

 

As a single person living alone and the fact they are saying social distancing could go on to the end of the year, will people be able to meet friends and family I really do not understand what level of social distancing is being implied for the foreseeable. This is a concern of mine that causes so many sleepless nights.

As Rooney says, nobody really knows. Let's hope the government give us some idea very soon. There has been talk of people drawing up a short list of friends and family and we will only be allowed to visit people on that list. That sounds like a logistical nightmare. For a start, each pair of people will have to include each other on their list. It also makes no allowance for how far away people on your list are.

As Rooney says, nobody really knows. Let's hope the government give us some idea very soon. There has been talk of people drawing up a short list of friends and family and we will only be allowed to visit people on that list. That sounds like a logistical nightmare. For a start, each pair of people will have to include each other on their list. It also makes no allowance for how far away people on your list are.

 

I think next week will be interesting, I suspect they will say something but less about social outings and more about business reopening and elite sport. I can’t see that list idea working either- too hard to implement. I think there will allow us to visit friends and family and strongly recommend we use the contact tracing app.

THEY arbitrarily set the target in the first place.

Indeed the target is arbitrary, which is why the row over the 100,000 target feels moot to me.

 

What is their goal with the testing? To detect, track and trace every single case? To simply monitor its spread? If the latter, then the testing doesn't have to be so extensive compared to the former objective.

 

But either way, there's no explanation as to how the number was chosen. What if 100,000 is still too little? Or what if it's more than what is necessary? The UK government have failed to hit their own arbitrarily-defined figure. It reminds me of the 100,000 net migration target that failed to be reached year after year without ever assessing the makeup or the costs and benefits of this migration.

P.S, Ireland are planning to reopen pubs on 10 August, a country hit less hard than Britain. So there's a long, long while to go yet.