Dominic Cummings testimony to HoC committee re Coronavirus

[Carth]

Originally Posted by jfman

Politicians: crap
High ranking Civil Servants: crap
Media: crap
Establishment: crap

OY!!! stop pinching my lines

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

We’d still be indoors from the first lockdown if it was down to you.

I think most members of the public understand that this was an unprecedented situation in modern times and the government did its best.

Those who claim that the government response to the virus was ‘catastrophic’ want an inquiry now because they know very well that the statistics from other countries are not only suspect, but the number of deaths are going up substantially while ours have reduced to single figures.

Yes totally unprecedented and no one could have seen it coming, if only we'd had a team of cabinet members and experts whose sole job was to plan and prepare for such an outbreak, that would have helped no end, might even have saved the day and many, many lives, hindsight is a wonderful thing and they can't be blamed for not having such a committee in place, unless of course we did have one and some idiot scrapped that exact team six months before the outbreak

[Sephiroth]

I'm no Boris fan but this is how I see it taken from the point where a grave situation had been identified

To amplify what TheDaddy said above:

1/
There was no vaccine and thus CV could not be stopped. Furthermore, we were not as prepared as the Guvmin thought we were (a major failure, imo).

2/
When lockdown occurred (whether too late or not), hospitals were getting into difficulty, not least of which the staff were going down with CV.

3/
CV, being highly transmissible and very bad for older folk, thus caused strain on ICUs which had insufficient ventilators.

4/
There being no vaccine, lockdown was the only answer to easing the pressure by reducing the case rate.

5/
Eventually the vaccine came (in the middle of a new wave due to relaxation of restrictions) and the rest you know.

With hindsight applied, all pretty obvious stuff. There are many questions that need answering (as well as Cummings' points, particularly on herd immunity):

a) Was there no early intelligence as to what was happening in China?

b) Were there no sensible alarm bells as to the goings on in Italy?

c) Why did the Guvmin think or pretend that the UK was pandemic ready?

[jfman]

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

Yes totally unprecedented and no one could have seen it coming, if only we'd had a team of cabinet members and experts whose sole job was to plan and prepare for such an outbreak, that would have helped no end, might even have saved the day and many, many lives, hindsight is a wonderful thing and they can't be blamed for not having such a committee in place, unless of course we did have one and some idiot scrapped that exact team six months before the outbreak

No one could see it coming such to the extent a pandemic has been named in the national risk register for about 20 years alongside fairly regular things like "flooding", "severe weather" and "attacks on crowded places".

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by jfman

No one could see it coming such to the extent a pandemic has been named in the national risk register for about 20 years alongside fairly regular things like "flooding", "severe weather" and "attacks on crowded places".

We thought enough concern to have a specific committee set up just in case and someone scrapped it, just like donny did, don't do what donny did, simple