Covid Inquiry ?

[Observer II]

No doubt costing £millions, will this Inquiry make any difference in the future, if we face another pandemic ?    💀

[Bill]

I agree. Like most enquiries these days, it takes far too long, costs a fortune, and generally only proves what’s already know. Just mention an enquiry and the legal profession immediately rub their hands together and begin thinking how long they can stretch it out for. ☹️

 

Bill 😊

[Lt Kije]

Lessons can be learned, we will in future have to face this kind of problem again, but I would say, is it should not point fingers at wrong decisions, we have never faced a problem like this, you cannot expect every decision to be right, some that were made have only been proven wrong with hindsight, learn lessons on how to improve things for any future government that might face a similar scenario, and then move on.

[Observer II]

There have been pandemics throughout history,  the only difference now is that they spread globally at the speed of a jet airliner, and move through porous borders.  Prior to the pandemic, the NHS ran a pandemic preparation exercise, which makes me wonder why we weren't prepared.  Then when the first reports came out of China, we despatched aircraft to bring out the Brits, thus bringing the virus with them.  Then when they arrived, they were taken to isolation units in the Wirral for qurantine, but that didn't last long, before long it was spreading throughout the community.  Despite ideas to the contrary, it remains a fact that isolation is the only defence against spread, so lock downs and minimal movement are essential.  Unfortunately, we had too little too late.    💀

[Confused52]

1 hour ago, Lt Kije said:

Lessons can be learned, we will in future have to face this kind of problem again, but I would say, is it should not point fingers at wrong decisions, we have never faced a problem like this, you cannot expect every decision to be right, some that were made have only been proven wrong with hindsight, learn lessons on how to improve things for any future government that might face a similar scenario, and then move on.

The real problems were not in government, they were in the structure and mindset employed in the NHS and Local Government. The NHS refused to sully its hands with being able to transfer its tests to the private sector, which is why testing couldn't be scaled up. PHE didn't have a mechanism for scaling up Test and Trace beyond the numbers expected for High Consequences Infectious Diseases. The NHS did not produce numbers of cases, hospital infections or spare beds until Angela Maclean allowed them to pass data via the MOD because they had spurious notions of data security. (Most likely backside covering) Local resilience forums never did have anything like a plan. Try as I will I can't find one for Cheshire or Warrington. The task of testing for infectious diseases and tracing is a function of Local Authorities and they didn't even know where the cases were and in some cases refused to believe what data there was. Not blaming particular people but our bloated public services serve themselves and not the public. The evidence for all that lot is in the output of the enquiry, other than the Cheshire bit.

 

[ninearches]

The only finger pointing should be at the source of the virus & not the politicians or the NHS. The scientists ,however ,may have been too full of their own importance.

[Confused52]

4 minutes ago, ninearches said:

The only finger pointing should be at the source of the virus & not the politicians or the NHS. The scientists ,however ,may have been too full of their own importance.

I think is it is important to make systemic improvements that will help a response to the next pandemic from wherever it originates. The problems it the NHS were in Data Management and Public Health England. A lot of money had been spent on the former before the pandemic and little improvement was obvious. Public Health England was put under new management with Jenny Harries in the new UKSA and they will not make the same mistakes again while she is in charge.

What about the source of the encouragement that seems to have produced the virus but is outside China? Australian journalists are chasing that even if ours can't be bothered because they will get more brownie point gunning for Boris and Sunak.

[ninearches]

It needs to be established if an accident has occurred or if a virus has been released deliberately or if the virus was a natural occurrence. 

Only then should an inquiry be set up into how it has been dealt with.

Either way , i doubt the compo chasing lawyers would get much response from a foreign government.

[Observer II]

It's fairly obvious, though not proven, that it leaked from a lab in Wuhan, the Chinese tried to cover it up, despite taking draconian lock down action to isolate it. As soon as it became news, China should have been isolated, no flights or movement to and from.  But that didn't happen, in fact the opposite, we sent flights to "recue" Brits and in doing so spread the virus.  💀

[Lt Kije]

16 hours ago, Confused52 said:

The real problems were not in government, they were in the structure and mindset employed in the NHS and Local Government. The NHS refused to sully its hands with being able to transfer its tests to the private sector, which is why testing couldn't be scaled up. PHE didn't have a mechanism for scaling up Test and Trace beyond the numbers expected for High Consequences Infectious Diseases. The NHS did not produce numbers of cases, hospital infections or spare beds until Angela Maclean allowed them to pass data via the MOD because they had spurious notions of data security. (Most likely backside covering) Local resilience forums never did have anything like a plan. Try as I will I can't find one for Cheshire or Warrington. The task of testing for infectious diseases and tracing is a function of Local Authorities and they didn't even know where the cases were and in some cases refused to believe what data there was. Not blaming particular people but our bloated public services serve themselves and not the public. The evidence for all that lot is in the output of the enquiry, other than the Cheshire bit.

 

No the real problems were in government, and mistakes were always going to be made, as long as we learn from the mistakes, I have no problem, The UK had never had to deal with an issue like this, mistakes were always going to be made, I don't want anyone to be blamed for making a mistake, especially ones that only came to light with hindsight. Lessons should be learned, so if the UK has to deal with something like this again we are better equipped to do it, we should not forget Spanish flue killed more people than died in WW1

[Lt Kije]

3 minutes ago, Observer II said:

It's fairly obvious, though not proven, that it leaked from a lab in Wuhan, the Chinese tried to cover it up, despite taking draconian lock down action to isolate it. As soon as it became news, China should have been isolated, no flights or movement to and from.  But that didn't happen, in fact the opposite, we sent flights to "recue" Brits and in doing so spread the virus.  💀

No its not Obvious at all, only on conspiracy web sites, Well at least I now know where you pick up your misguided views and refuse to back anything up

[Observer II]

More naivity, to the point of criminality, your lot will kill us all off.   😠

[Lt Kije]

2 minutes ago, Observer II said:

More naivity, to the point of criminality, your lot will kill us all off.   😠

Come on then prove your point, sadly for you, there is no evidence, only opinion

[Observer II]

So where's your evidence for believing the Chinese cover story, about bats ?    

[Confused52]

44 minutes ago, Lt Kije said:

No the real problems were in government, and mistakes were always going to be made, as long as we learn from the mistakes, I have no problem, The UK had never had to deal with an issue like this, mistakes were always going to be made, I don't want anyone to be blamed for making a mistake, especially ones that only came to light with hindsight. Lessons should be learned, so if the UK has to deal with something like this again we are better equipped to do it, we should not forget Spanish flue killed more people than died in WW1

The Spanish flu was an incident just like Covid, no current immunity in the population. There was an insufficiency of understanding about how it was transmitted at the time but importantly it disproportionally attacked the young and otherwise fit. Luckily there was not such a high population density but multi generational households were much more common. NPIs were all that could be used against Spanish Flu because there were no vaccines or anti-virals.

Against Covid Government was for the initially most part acting blind, the advantages of modern science were not well deployed. The PHE test was designed to work with only one test kit on once set of Laboratory apparatus. To grow capacity the whole stock of the equipment concerned was requisitioned from every university in the UK that had one, and an order for replacements placed with the manufacture Thermofisher. The tests were never designed to be used outside the PHE or NHS labs because it wasn't necessary according to the evidence of the man who ran PHE at the time. It is a system error that no one asked whether extending the test from Colindale labs to commercial partners for manufacturer was sensible. I doubt that mistake would have been made for work that came from the Porton Down arm of PHE. That lack of flexibility is what stopped testing too early and caused the lack of understanding of how fast the virus was spreading. These are not mistakes in Central Government but a lack of overall planning between independent agencies who failed to liaise with each other or the centre..

I will agree to there being at least one critical mistake in government but no one seems to be talking about it. The juvenile system of risk assessment does not take into account the non-linear effect of very infrequent occurrences. This is an enduring error in the security services given that the technique used was just lifted from the financial sector where there is no such thing as a truly existential threat as the government bail-out can always be assumed!

Fortunately there was still some fraction of remaining capacity being genetically sequenced and that tells us that 99% of the virus did not come direct from China, and certainly not the initial strain. Virtually all cases here were strains previous reported in European ski holiday destinations. Obs inclination to blame those that came to the Wirral is totally unsupported by the evidence.

[Confused52]

1 hour ago, Lt Kije said:

No its not Obvious at all, only on conspiracy web sites, Well at least I now know where you pick up your misguided views and refuse to back anything up

Try looking. Start with Sky News Australia.

[Confused52]

1 hour ago, Observer II said:

So where's your evidence for believing the Chinese cover story, about bats ?    

Well it did come from Bats but not directly. It is what is in between the bats and Humans that is in dispute, the Chinese claim animals and others claim modification in a Laboratory. There is a patent on such modification from someone at the Wuhan Lab, and the modification between the recorded Bat Virus, in the public domain, has the modifications given in the patent. But that is just circumstantial ....

[Observer II]

Most Countries operate labs, whether they are for good or evil intent, is open to question.   💀

[Confused52]

18 minutes ago, Observer II said:

Most Countries operate labs, whether they are for good or evil intent, is open to question.   💀

Your response suggests that you think is was nothing to do with Bats, it was. I am not aware of anyone who suggests the creation was for evil intent even amongst those who think it a lab leak. I will not go into this further but it was meant by everyone I have heard of of be intended as protection. In the long term I believe it will be protection.

[Observer II]

I watched a prog, of the Chinese professor who researches the bats, taking samples back to her lab.   Whilst no doubt her research has benign intent, it takes very little to weaponise various strains of virus.  Biological warfare is probably the most efficient and effective means of inflicting a defeat on an enemy, without destroying infrastructure.   It was considered by Churchill in the darker days of WW2,  where they experimented with anthrax on a remote Scottish Island, which has had to left vacant ever since.   💀

[Confused52]

41 minutes ago, Observer II said:

I watched a prog, of the Chinese professor who researches the bats, taking samples back to her lab.   Whilst no doubt her research has benign intent, it takes very little to weaponise various strains of virus.  Biological warfare is probably the most efficient and effective means of inflicting a defeat on an enemy, without destroying infrastructure.   It was considered by Churchill in the darker days of WW2,  where they experimented with anthrax on a remote Scottish Island, which has had to left vacant ever since.   💀

 Gruinard was declared free of Anthrax by the Ministry of Defence in April 1990. Source:BBC

[Observer II]

Still abandoned though - but my point was, that any Gov, if desperate, will use such weapons.  💀

[Lt Kije]

3 hours ago, Confused52 said:

Try looking. Start with Sky News Australia.

I have looked, just opinion, no proof!!

Ill wait, for proof, thank you

[Confused52]

7 minutes ago, Lt Kije said:

I have looked, just opinion, no proof!!

Ill wait, for proof, thank you

Excellent  say nothing more until there is proof. However you missed my point, you may dismiss the Sky News Aus. article as not being proof but the claim you made which was being rebutted was "only on conspiracy web sites" . Obs didn't claim it was proof but Sky News isn't a conspiracy site, even in Aus.

[Lt Kije]

4 hours ago, Confused52 said:

The Spanish flu was an incident just like Covid, no current immunity in the population. There was an insufficiency of understanding about how it was transmitted at the time but importantly it disproportionally attacked the young and otherwise fit. Luckily there was not such a high population density but multi generational households were much more common. NPIs were all that could be used against Spanish Flu because there were no vaccines or anti-virals.

Against Covid Government was for the initially most part acting blind, the advantages of modern science were not well deployed. The PHE test was designed to work with only one test kit on once set of Laboratory apparatus. To grow capacity the whole stock of the equipment concerned was requisitioned from every university in the UK that had one, and an order for replacements placed with the manufacture Thermofisher. The tests were never designed to be used outside the PHE or NHS labs because it wasn't necessary according to the evidence of the man who ran PHE at the time. It is a system error that no one asked whether extending the test from Colindale labs to commercial partners for manufacturer was sensible. I doubt that mistake would have been made for work that came from the Porton Down arm of PHE. That lack of flexibility is what stopped testing too early and caused the lack of understanding of how fast the virus was spreading. These are not mistakes in Central Government but a lack of overall planning between independent agencies who failed to liaise with each other or the centre..

I will agree to there being at least one critical mistake in government but no one seems to be talking about it. The juvenile system of risk assessment does not take into account the non-linear effect of very infrequent occurrences. This is an enduring error in the security services given that the technique used was just lifted from the financial sector where there is no such thing as a truly existential threat as the government bail-out can always be assumed!

Fortunately there was still some fraction of remaining capacity being genetically sequenced and that tells us that 99% of the virus did not come direct from China, and certainly not the initial strain. Virtually all cases here were strains previous reported in European ski holiday destinations. Obs inclination to blame those that came to the Wirral is totally unsupported by the evidence.

As I thought i had said, I just want the UK to be better prepared, if something like Spanish flue comes along that is resistant to anything we have currently to stop it, or any other disease, if we can learn from some of the things that were not done properly or by mistakes made, then we are better prepared, I am not a Toty, but I do think, most of what was done was for what they thought was the right reasons, I don't want to blame, anyone, I just want the UK to be better prepared next time something like this happens, if that happens, then for me its money well spent