Coronavirus - the new strain XVI
- Thread starter Tony L
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Seanm
pfm Member
I really don’t know about this whole testing thing. I mean we had to test, that was the right thing to do, and given prevalence levels it was always going to be incredibly expensive. Also the state can easily afford it. And I’m sure there’s a report doing the rounds saying it did make a difference.
The problem is still that people weren’t supported so that they could isolate: that’s the scandal, and that’s what makes T&T poor value for money.
The problem is still that people weren’t supported so that they could isolate: that’s the scandal, and that’s what makes T&T poor value for money.
Voluntary systems like T&T are open to abuse. If you want markedly different results, then look to the hardline approach in China.
Those books that people had to sign in last year, at places like pubs, were a joke.
There's a pub in Heywood near you, Tony. The sign-in book reads like a Disney playlist.
Seanm
pfm Member
Yes, true, possibly/probably: I remember a lot of the early criticism was that they'd decided to sideline local authorities, who were experienced and in a better position to reach people and to intervene. I haven't seen any reports since, would be good to know to what extent those criticisms were justified.
Seanm
pfm Member
I don't see why it's necessary to look to China or to a hardline approach when there's evidence to suggest that compliance would be greater if people weren't afraid, with good reason, of losing their jobs. That's an avenue I'd have thought worth exploring before rushing to weld people into their flats.
The pub thing does seem to have been a joke, though: total PR. Again, worth thinking about whether it was ever really supposed to work, or could have, before assuming the problem was wilful non-compliance.
k90tour
pfm Member
I've been following an anti - everything Facebook Page , and sometimes I post something to challenge. When I said that my neighbour knew a family torn apart because one brother took the children and deliver Covid to their grandparents (killing the grandfather), I received a volley of abuse and one woman pointed me to a BMJ article about the lack of transmission from children in Wuhan.
Paragraph two in BMJ report: "None of the above results has any meaning outside Wuhan, whose viral loads are completely different because of the severe lockdown and restrictions that were placed early on."
This was a woman complaining about lockdowns; and why had China opened up and we hadn't?
Forever.
Seanm
pfm Member
Is this a joke?
mandryka
pfm Member
I've never seen any research on what people actually do when they're asked to isolate. Have you?
I've seen figures which say that many don't comply fully, though I've never seen it broken down by social class, and I've certainly never come across any information about what their partial compliance involves.
mandryka
pfm Member
We're being softened up right now for serious restrictions in Autumn/Winter.
mandryka
pfm Member
What would be good to see is some work on how much T and T should have cost. Do you know how much it cost to set up in other European countries with an infrastructure similar to ours was this time last year? Anyway, now's the time that it will have to prove its mettle, now that case numbers are lower. Fortunately on paper the test and forward contact tracing looks pretty good.
Testing up nearly 60 per cent as well with a huge 1.4 million (almost) carried out in the most recent figures. Still we see a decrease in cases despite this. Another big drop in deaths there also from this time last week which shows the vaccines are working.
gavreid
Pretty Words...
Cases will rise in the next month - I think the best we can hope for is a levelling at around 5000 per day or so. They'll then be further spreading at Easter, which we'll see in about 5 weeks from now I suppose.
Tony L
Administrator
The point is Apple and Google did most of the heavy lifting, but the Tory government was too arrogant, stupid or corrupt to initially go with that and wasted £bns of our money in some ridiculous alternative defined by the clueless Dido Harding and the tax-siphoning Serco. They should have started with the globally available iOS and Android infrastructure and used existing local and national NHS and social work networks to trace rather than, in typical Tory fashion, duplicating state functionality via their mates. I don’t know the exact tax/borrowing figure they have squandered on this white elephant, but it is very clearly tens of £bns over budget and looks to have been remarkably ineffective so far. It is a textbook example of Tory ‘privatise the profits, nationalise the losses’ strategy. If we had any credible opposition the Tories would lose the next election on this alone.
Seanm
pfm Member
Just a couple of reports comparing people's intentions with their actual behaviour, and their own explanation of the disparity. Don't have them to hand or even remember what they were, but this article brings a few things together:
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n224
Seanm
pfm Member
That stuff with the app really did look stupid and unnecessary/corrupt, but it was only a small part of the whole setup, as I understand it. The tests themselves are expensive and they've done millions of them.
As for where the money's coming from, it's just one part of the government (Bank of England) moving it to another part: we can do that all day long, there's little borrowing as such, as far as I understand it (which is not very far, don't ask me to explain!)
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