Re: Coronavirus
 

The £10k could get burnt through fairly quickly if (and it's a big if) the staff are not already set up for mobile working. Looking at my home setup, I have;

Laptop - £1700 (our standard laptops are £1000)
Monitor - £200
Keyboard and Mouse - £75
Phone - £550
Chair - £400
Desk - £400
Printer - £130
Headset - £70
Plus software licences, setup costs, VPN, etc.

It all adds up pretty quickly...

Re: Coronavirus
 

I did listen to the clip but I think it's nuts to suggest Murdoch wants Boris Johnson out. It overstates the degree to which a newspaper owner imposes their own politics onto each and every edition, they may have an editorial line in favour of the owner but that doesn't mean every article is in pursuit of that goal. The Times especially has a greater degree of independence than The Sun. It would be the latter that would be making moves if this really was a goal of Murdoch.

As for judging in hindsight then if we're not careful then you can use that to excuse anything. It just becomes an excuse to never to critique the Government because they'll never know everything that's about to happen. The questions are the degree to which they could have predicted future events, the role their existing management of the country helped or hindered a response to those events and what they did when those events occurred.

In hindsight Labour couldn't have predicted the 2008 crash. However should they have paid more attention to regulation of the financial crisis before it? Should they have paid more attention to the warning lights flashing in the year or so preceding the collapse of Lehman Brothers? Are they to blame for the state of the economy and it's ability to cope when the crash did occur?

The Government will in time face similar questions. Did they pay enough attention in the early part of the year? Should the NHS have been in a better position to respond? Did they pay enough attention to the reported results where we simulated the impact of a viral pandemic?

I think the Government did well when the crisis did come but the question of if we could have been better prepared is still open.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I think the criticism was at the state of the nations finances when the crash came as not only had the Labour Govt enjoyed a buoyant economy and spent the revenues earned, but they had also borrowed big time during the same period.

As I've said before, as far as I am aware (happy to be corrected) but so far, everyone that has needed an ICU bed has got one, and everybody that has needed ventilation has got it.

There has been no dying in the corridors, or doctors having to decide who gets the ventilator and lives and who doesn't and dies - as was reported to be happening in Italy at some hospitals.

The PPE issue is potentially where scrutiny can be given, did we have enough stockpiles (Y/N) if N why and if Y why was the logistics of getting it to the hospitals so bad?

There is always things that can be done better, because no matter how well you prepare, you don't know how you will perform until tested in real life, and this pandemic was swift. If we had modelled how we respond in these situation based on Swine Flu & SARS then we wouldn't have measured up as COVID19 infection rate is miles worse that those two.

Personally I would give them a B+ at the moment, that may rise to an A- or A if they manage to steadily reduce infection and death from now and have a functioning economy come June.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

But Damien, the government listened to the advice they were given, they cannot do anything better than that, at the time, the World Health Organisation was playing the virus down significantly, so was SAGE and other government scientific bodies and now we know the whys and how, we cannot blame the government for following the Status Quo, that was, during January through Feb, the virus was played down and that was because the science behind the decisions, WHO listening to propaganda from China, you cannot expect any government to ignore advice that it was given or to act outside of it, especially if it involves peoples lives.

The timing of the lockdown was critical, I've said many times why and being in the healthcare sector myself, it totally makes sense to have done what the government did. To do so any earlier, to listen to the hysteria and screaming from certain quarters in the media, would have been a disaster, more than we are seeing now, 100K deaths for sure and an NHS on it's knees, as it stands, the government strategy has completely avoided this and this is what people don't get, they see the current death rate, compare it to other countries, which I don't deny is very high and behind each one, a tragic death, was a living and breathing person, they see that death rate and just scream incompetence.

It doesn't help when you have an hysterical media outlet, getting it's facts totally wrong, trying to rewrite history, writing stupid remarks, like the "PM missing Cobra meetings", which is the standard anyway and they knew that from the outset, it's just pathetic sensationalism, desperation to sell more papers because it is a dying and failing industry.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I would think so. Many are pulling their hair out by now and cannot cope with the complexity of the school work!

Re: Coronavirus
 

Are you using Priti Patel's calculator? :D

John's calcs for one person come to over £3.5k. Multiple that by three people.

Re: Coronavirus
 

We do have one of the highest death counts in Europe though so until we understand why an 'A' grade might be optimistic. I suspect that's more about lockdown timing though.

Looking at one of the most successful countries - Germany - getting on top of the testing situation might have been beneficial too. The people who get infected, and where, make a difference though which may also have helped Germany.

---------- Post added at 14:12 ---------- Previous post was at 14:10 ----------

We don't know precisely what advice they were given prior to the Imperial College Report as that hasn't been published.

Why would have an earlier lockdown seen 100k deaths?

Re: Coronavirus
 

Because it was not at the beginning of the curve towards the peak, you introduce a lockdown, at the wrong time, it's going to have exponential ramifications down the line, NHS will get overwhelmed, when an early and unnecessary lockdown lifts and you still have a 66 Million people population susceptible to still getting Covid-19, many people will not be able to get treated, because all the ICU beds are full, all the hospital corridors, waiting rooms get swamped, thousands more people will die and they cannot get treated because the NHS has fallen apart, it's been swamped with an overburden of new Covid-19 infections, throughout the entire UK.

The science is there, I thought this guy in this video that I shared back in March, explained in basic terms why you cannot just introduce a lockdown right at the beginning of a few cases of Coronavirus....

Re: Coronavirus
 

Sure but that was the initial strategy which changed after the publication of the Imperial College Report. The concept there is a the herd immunity one whereby we accept most of the population will manage it so we control the flow as to not overload ICU capacity.

What changed was that the demand on beds was a lot higher than expected, we'll see what happens but the Government might be going for a hybrid approach.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Some thoughts here from former PM Tony Blair as he publishes a potential exit plan from lockdown.

https://institute.global/sites/defau...ing%20Harm.pdf

Re: Coronavirus
 

Mr Blair’s plan for exiting the Brexit process didn’t work out too well for him. I can’t imagine whatever hare brained, nakedly political wheeze he’s come up with now will fare any better.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Lest anyone gets excited and starts criticising the report because of Tony Blair's political views on Iraq or Brexit...
The report is from The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, and is written by five people, none of whom is a Tony or a Blair. ;)

Re: Coronavirus
 

Yup. Hard to believe they’re not expressing an opinion consistent with their employers though.

Re: Coronavirus
 

This perfectly sums up how feel about the media currently.

https://www.effiedeans.com/2020/04/j...d-country.html