UK Covid death toll

[Babel]

With the benefit of seeing how quickly the situation had spiralled in Italy we had the opportunity to do better, and wasted at least 2 to 3 weeks prevaricating; we never caught that time up. We also failed to make use of the natural advantages afforded to us by virtue of being an island.

Slight tangent, but I thought the Welsh first minister summed it up perfectly when he talked about the UK government "making an announcement first and then trying to work out what was meant by it..." We've seen examples of that on almost a daily basis.

That, Oss, is a precise definition of buffoonery: blather, claptrap, and then wonder what was meant.

Obliquely, I cannot imagine that Therese May would have been found so wanting in the current crisis as the current No. 10 incumbent. We replaced a serious (if often wrong) Prime Minister with a lightweight adolescent who mouths whatever he feels he has to say to seem like grown up.

[Ossian]

I agree about May: her approach would undoubtedly have been more cautious and methodical; also her innate instinct to be authoritarian - draconian on occasions - would probably have served us better in terms of dealing with a quickly emerging pandemic.

I also think May would have assembled a cabinet better equipped for the task. She would certainly have known from first-hand experience that Patel and Williamson weren't to be trusted.

[baggy1]

Another 'on target week' for excess deaths - Compared with 2019 there were over 500 less deaths this year compared with last and 300 compared with the 5 year average. There are still covid deaths obviously but we are now running pretty much within the expected levels for this time of year.

Some interesting reports coming out this week as more comes to light with this virus. It appears that herd immunity was always a non-starter from a report in spain. And the Telegraph gave a good article on different opinions of how this should have been dealt with, the consent was that lockdown was inevitable and the only way of dealing with this https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07...=DM1263736

Good to know we heading back in the right direction

---

One thing that is nagging at me on all of this data is that the new way of reporting the statistics doesn't match the old way. When we had the daily briefings they would release the datasets behind the slides the same day, it had a few days lag but never too much, an example being the dataset for the 26th June included hospital admissions in England, NI and Wales data to the 23rd and Scotland's to the 17th.

Looking at the current data on the new website the hospital admissions data is still only up to the 23rd June and picking random dates on that page and comparing them to the original dataset shows every day to be lower than the old dataset. I'm not a tinfoil hat regular but this stinks of a cover up and hiding data for some reason. The only comfort I have is that the patients in hospital and on ventilator data is coming down slowly and is more up to date (2nd and 3rd July respectively)

[bradesbaggie]

Sunday : Clap for carers
Monday : Blame for carers
Wednesday : Car park charges for carers

[FenlandBoing]

Just got back from Tesco and they've removed all the one way stickers, no queuing and letting in at least 3 times the number of people they were compared to last week and previous weeks. Majority of customers wandering round in close proximity, behaving like normal - shocking how ignorant people can be. We may be having a second spike soon if this is how most big retailers are going to deal with arrangements in stores going forwards.

[Derek Hardballs]

Just got back from Tesco and they've removed all the one way stickers, no queuing and letting in at least 3 times the number of people they were compared to last week and previous weeks. Majority of customers wandering round in close proximity, behaving like normal - shocking how ignorant people can be. We may be having a second spike soon if this is how most big retailers are going to deal with arrangements in stores going forwards.

The idea is the government throw all the responsibility onto the general public by using meaningless terms like common sense, give up on the science and forfeit health for the economy. The base will lap it up, they will fall for the spin that it’s individuals fault and still pretend despite the death toll that the government are doing as well as they can in difficult circumstances.

[FenlandBoing]

Just got back from Tesco and they've removed all the one way stickers, no queuing and letting in at least 3 times the number of people they were compared to last week and previous weeks. Majority of customers wandering round in close proximity, behaving like normal - shocking how ignorant people can be. We may be having a second spike soon if this is how most big retailers are going to deal with arrangements in stores going forwards.

The idea is the government throw all the responsibility onto the general public by using meaningless terms like common sense, give up on the science and forfeit health for the economy. The base will lap it up, they will fall for the spin that it’s individuals fault and still pretend despite the death toll that the government are doing as well as they can in difficult circumstances.

Well in this case it's Tesco doing that with the occasional sign of "keep your distance' in the store as opposed to limiting customers entering in the first place! It's Tesco who are forfeiting customers health for their economy. And yes I will be shopping elsewhere next week!

[Derek Hardballs]

Just got back from Tesco and they've removed all the one way stickers, no queuing and letting in at least 3 times the number of people they were compared to last week and previous weeks. Majority of customers wandering round in close proximity, behaving like normal - shocking how ignorant people can be. We may be having a second spike soon if this is how most big retailers are going to deal with arrangements in stores going forwards.

The idea is the government throw all the responsibility onto the general public by using meaningless terms like common sense, give up on the science and forfeit health for the economy. The base will lap it up, they will fall for the spin that it’s individuals fault and still pretend despite the death toll that the government are doing as well as they can in difficult circumstances.

Well in this case it's Tesco doing that with the occasional sign of "keep your distance' in the store as opposed to limiting customers entering in the first place! It's Tesco who are forfeiting customers health for their economy. And yes I will be shopping elsewhere next week!

Have the government made it law that they should be keeping their distance? Or are they leaving it to Tesco and their staff to use their common sense?

[bradesbaggie]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...-post.html

[baggy1]

This weeks figures for England and Wales are out showing the data up until week 27 (3rd July). Again we're running at about the same as this time last year, slightly up on last year and slightly down on the 5 year average and still holding at that 62.5k excess death figure.

The hospital admissions, people in hospital and those on ventilators figures are dropping slowly but it does indicate that those in hospital now are unlikely to recover, the dates are slightly out which makes it hard to measure accurately but deaths (600 in the past week reported) are matching the 7 day reduction (up to the 9th July) in those in hospital. There are still over 2000 in hospital with this.