No we don’t, we’ll also most likely be chartering planes if we haven’t done it already.
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...es-to-fly-in-farm-workers-from-eastern-europe
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...es-to-fly-in-farm-workers-from-eastern-europe
I don't get it. Why not just apologise? Saying that makes it much worse and the whole issue more awkward.
Because then they are admitting that they’ve made mistakes. They should just shut the feck up if they have nothing positive to say
Why do people always have to blame someone for everything? The pandemic is unprecedented, it’s not like we have millions of PPE stockpiled as a just in case measure. PPE supplies are needed worldwide, it’s pretty obvious there will be a supply and demand issue. How exactly is that the Tories fault as you have put it?
Could they not just say sorry and explain the issues they have faced? I mean people should understand given the circumstances that this isn't easy for any country.
It’s more to do with how quickly they reacted and their reaction to date. They knew about this crisis for longer so had extra time to either acquire more sources or repurpose factories to make their own supply. Instead they are pretty much chasing their tail.
Looking good, but experts fear a second peak in 14 days since more and more people seem to be going out, especially now with Easter weekend.
I heard on bbc radio we are far worse equipped than many other countries in Europe. Why do you think that is?
It can be tiresome at times, I agree (speaking as an Irishman). It’s mostly a reflexive impulse guided by the historical, geographical and cultural links and power imbalance between our nations, which I’m sure you’ll be able to understand when you think about it.
However, among a small but vocal intellectual clique this reflex is often channeled through a kind of reverse-snobbery, best exemplified by this guy:
I’m sure you guys can handle it though.
I didn't even get into blame my objections were to the gaslighting and dishonest rhetoric of the government. They're so focused on avoiding blaming that they're spinning that there's no issue at all.
The lack of PPE under these circumstances isn't unprecedented though. We spent money and effort in assessing preparedness for these events in 2016 and identified it as a risk, what mitigations were formed?
We knew about this in January and have we sufficiently ramped up plans for the manufacturing industry to produce PPE? Considering the health secretary only started making public calls for it towards the end of March and manufactures were being turned down with equipment sold offshore instead then I'm going to say not.
This isn’t a supply and demand issue, I’ve got companies who I used to buy and sell mobile telecoms from who now have good access to PPE equipment. Supply appears to be fine, it’s all about the government getting it to the front line, which from all accounts is nothing short of a shambles currently. The buck stops with them on this.
They're all just playing from the Lynton Crosby rulebook, get briefed on one message to say and repeat it constantly in the media.
Reminds me of "coalition of chaos" before 2015 election (they were 2 years out). And of course "take back control."
Evidently, yes. I've seen a bunch of trials for this one. Same mechanism. Dear Leader actually warned us that chloroquine had worse side effects!
They're all just playing from the Lynton Crosby rulebook, get briefed on one message to say and repeat it constantly in the media.
Reminds me of "coalition of chaos" before 2015 election (they were 2 years out). And of course "take back control."
I guess we just have to accept that most people's engagement in politics is limited to around two sentences at a time.
I'm sorry you feel that the Tories won't genuinely apologise because they are lying slimy bastards who are already manoeuvring to blame Brits getting sun in the park for the UK's colossal death rate, rather than the government's abject policy response.
Can’t really put it any better than thatGreat
That means his math was incorrect.
It is great when data suggests that when under control things might be better than we feared. Keeping thing under control is the trick.
Because they could gave acted much earlier. 2 months of bumbling inaction has come home to roost.
It's how they said it that's infuriating. Saying that you're sorry people feel that they can't get PPE makes no sense. Getting hold of stuff is an action, it's not like saying "I'm sorry you feel angry". PPE is a tangible thing - you can either get it or you can't.
What they're doing is refusing to say "I'm sorry you can't get PPE, we know there's not enough, we're trying to get more of it ASAP". They won't say that because it means someone in the line of command has failed at the getting of it, for whatever reason.
Are you sure about the timeline? Sweden has fewer, much fewer, citizens from China with dual nationality nor does it have anything approaching the numbers of Chinese residents with Permanent Residency or the big numbers of Chinese international students.
Australia has all the above - and the sheer mobility of its dual citizens and those with PR including people from the People's Republic of China means that it was exposed to the virus from Wuhan relatively early. The cases that popped up early in the media were of Chinese tourists but then the large numbers of international students from China being permitted to return plus Chinese returning from yes, Wuhan and other cities - no the virus was not confined to Hubei province - on their Australian passports and PR visas kickstarted the real wave of virus infections.
While Swedes were being told to enjoy the pub and were walking around as if everything was pre-virus, Australia was testing and isolating, establishing pop-up testing places, testing drive throughs etc, and state and federal govts were telling the public that hard decisions were going to be made about their freedom of movement.
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What does the Royal Family do in a crisis? It just changes it's name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor.
It's not artless either - saying 'I'm sorry you feel that way' casts the questioner as unreasonable, and unjustifiably angry and demanding.
They are already testing it in the UK right now. The dosage is 400mg twice a day and then 400mg for 7 days. I think the USA may have given too much dosage. The information on the HCQ actually came from China and Dr. Wang. Where they say it shows progress and they think it works better with covid 19 than SARS.
Now obviously by the end of the month we should have more information on these clinical trials as many countries are doing this. Furthermore many countries are using this as a preventive measures for the front line workers but not in Europe.
In the UK, the dosage they are trying is lower compared to the USA one. Since it works with a lower dosage with malaria with acceptable side effects, it's worth a try at this stage.
I saw parts of the original study.
So another update for you guys from your friendly neighborhood Trinidadian doctor. As of right now we're at 113 confirmed cases, with 8 deaths and 16 discharges so far. For the most part, most of our patients are quite comfortable, not many of them are very ill at all (Roughly in keeping with the accepted figure of 15-20% of Covid positive people being sick enough to need to come into hospital). They're all still in the containment hospitals until their swabs come back negative. It's been 22 days since we completely shut our borders and roughly 16 days since everything non essential was shut down.
Most couples are doing this. But we'll blame the government nonetheless!
Non sequitur.
It's been trialed in France for more than a month now and there is nothing showing that it works.
Well someone has to be less well equipped. Why not us? Plenty other countries are doing worse.
Click the tweet to see them all.
Here in Japan the suicide rate is already high although not as high as that in South Korea. Essentially fear of other people's opinions and judgement and an obsession with saving face plays a big role, but even with Japan's limited State of Emergency the economic pain is biting. I dread to think of the human toll this is taking on ordinary workers especially those with blue collar jobs such as making food, delivering it, working full time in supermarkets and stores, labourers, etc.
The famous Tokyo Tsukiji Fish Market moved last year to an area called Toyosu which lacks Tsukiji's charms and already had seen a dive in visitors. The other day I read a Japanese news article where workers in the market said in despair that they can't make a living as it has been shut down just like many other attractions, businesses, shopping malls, theatres, etc etc. Tokyo is home to a big theatre industry and there are so many actors/musicians who are paid barely liveable wages in the first place and of course all of that is shut down.
It's cruel and it's going to get crueller. People who have never lived in Japan or have been the privileged big international company employees or the sheltered overpaid foreign service employees have no idea of how low salaries and wages are in Japan including in the most expensive city of all, Tokyo. Japanese complain about how expensive Oz is but salaries/wages are much higher. For some reason the politicians in Japan think that a family with 1 or 2 kids can pay tax and get by on an income of 220,000 yen per month. The income is before tax. That's about 2,200 Oz dollars per month.
That's barely enough for single people and while many Aussies would say 'Oh but welfare is that low' in Oz, the fact is in Japan you are actually paying real taxes on that kind of income - for starters national health insurance each month which is usually more than what you'd pay per month for private health insurance in Australia. You also pay a flat rate of 15,000 plus yen for the national pension each month which is about 150 Oz dollars plus so called citizen's tax 4 times a year which slugs somebody on the salary I mentioned for over 1,000 dollars.
You also pay income tax on that paltry income. No discounts on transportation, no utilities help or rent relief etc. People with children do get child support but it's not much. As for people with no children, and single people, especially foreigners, basically the system doesn't care about them but it does want their money.
The Japanese also have no culture of charity shops, thrift shops to help lower income and special needs people, no culture of giving to somebody who is not connected to you, etc. There are volunteers for different things but their assistance is very small at the best of times, they don't have fund raisers for needy people, there are no established food banks here, a tiny number of volunteers giving a few rice balls to the homeless and semi-homeless who live in horrendous conditions including the oldest homeless you'll find in a first world country is no comparison, and there is the prevailing idea that people should save their money and not beg from the state or society.
Even this semi-voluntary semi-lockdown here in Tokyo is killing the economy of ordinary to low income workers, smaller business owners and sadly I expect the suicides will jump as there is no real program to compensate them and the one time handout of a few thousand dollars in Japanese yen will only go so far for those who are lucky enough to get it. The bar will be set too high as it always is. And don't even mention households where are no Japanese. I've never received a single yen from the J Gov anytime as somebody who pays a considerable amount of tax proportionate to my income.
I'm used to that by now but the twitter from a Japanese poliitician in the present Abe Government still angered me. This POS tweeted that foreigners should go home and their countries should look after them. She didn't say international students who fall into a grey area - she said people like me who have paid a lot of tax for years here including expensive health insurance payments each month. I believe in national health systems and it's a necessary obligation but why members of this goverment are allowed to publicly insult people who are keeping their society running along with the Japanese, is beyond me.
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Because it is a British trait that goes back centuries, the truth is we are very rarely if ever fully prepared for anything, even when we know its coming. Governments in the UK ALL live 'in the moment' and often plan that way, i.e. only as far as the next GE, its part of our national way of political life. This is especially true in conflict situations whether it be wars of a conventional nature or any other conflict, we almost inevitably start on the wrong foot, hunker down, then come back swinging.
Usually it is the poor bloody infantry (front line troops mainly) who take the biggest hits, in most conflicts we get into they are not enough of them, they are not properly equipped, or armed or in some cases even trained, at least necessarily to the right level, when things kick-off'. There is always (but never admitted) an acceptable loss, whether it was 20 minutes life expectancy for the first wave of troops landing on the Normandy Beaches in WW2, or as now NHS staff fighting against a vicious unseen enemy without proper PPE.
Traditionally we handout medals to those involved in a military campaigns , I hope we do the something in the same manner when this is over. Hindsight is a great thing, but none of us possess it fully and certainly Governments struggle, but who knows maybe at last we will 'learn something from history'.
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I think you're conflating this with something else, because it's clearly not the case. Can you imagine how many soldiers would have to die for the life expectancy to be 20 minutes? The vast majority of them lived.
Also if we're talking tradition Britain had a large and prepared navy almost all the time. Only in the last few decades has that changed, and we're still competitive outside the super-powers.
Wrong. Both would be welcome. Before brexit and the rule changes the kiwi would have found it a lot tougher though. My Filipino friend has had nightmare over the last decade and is working in the NHS finally.
I suppose it must mean if you died that the average was 20 minutes from landing on the beach. You see this kind of " average life expectancy" stat a lot when people discuss conflicts and I never understand it.
Then they are cnuts too. I haven’t seen my gf in 3 weeks.
I touched on this earlier in the thread, and to me its frustrating to hear and not helpful in any way. Lots of it seems to be politically driven which again i dont understand.
As far as i can see All governments are walking a fine tightrope between protecting their population and protecting their economy. From that respect there is always going to be conflict.
Many of the people (journos included) saying we locked down too late will be the same ones complaining the lockdown has gone on too long in a few weeks ( signs are there already in some areas of the press)
Most governments have been caught out in this pandemic, but the truth is we cant prepare for EVERY eventually. Imagine 6 yrs ago we bought 10000 extra ventillators and half a billion bits of ppe, imagine we had manufacturing capability there sitting idle waiting for this pandemic. And then imagine we had a dirty nuclear weapon or two go off, as was feared it would do only a couple of years ago. And then we would be ill prepared and under equipped for that.
Truth is no one can afford to plan and stockpile for every eventuality, but its human nature to blame people for not doing this or that.
Time will tell if we should have acted differently, and if so how many lives would have been saved, but every country is different with different problems and demographics, ive not seen any western country come up with a one answer fits all policy yet
It may have but the British didn't believe it and is in clinical trials anyway. Of course they are using the one for hiv too and a couple of others.