Thread by @fascinatorfun

Vietnam makes a good case for the naysayers who suggest we could not help all those deaths & sickness...
The U.K. is too big! But London!

Vietnam:-
Pop- 96 million
Hanoi- 7 million
First cases late Jan

Now?

270 cases. Zero deaths. No cover up

uk.reuters.com/article/us-hea…

Whereas the U.K. with pop 65 million has c 29,000 “Official” test positive deaths are 28,734 as of yesterday and that excludes thousands of deaths with COVID on the test certification, indeed tens of thousands of excess deaths.

Even on the most favourable assessment Vietnam has completed more than a million more tests than us.

To do that it started early and aggressively expanding its Lab capacity from 3 to 112 by early April

It has conducted over 700 tests for every confirmed case.

It also has an aggressive quarantine programme which might explain why it had just 10% in the test positive group in the over 60s - and ZERO deaths.

After discovering its first two cases, Vietnam immediately stopped flights from Wuhan on 23rd January despite the WHO not advising travel restrictions at the time.

It closed its 870 mile land border with China save for essential trade.

Challenges larger than ours.
Testing ready

It set about mass production of masks prioritising healthcare workers.
In March mask wearing compulsory for everyone in public places.

The garment making industry supported supply

TENS of thousands were quarantined in military-run centres, originally largely untested

It took to early April for the testing regime to outstrip those quarantined.

In the first week of March, 20 positive cases had been identified.
In the second that had doubled. Aggressive contact tracing followed.

By then we had over 50 dead

They applied the precautionary principle as did S Korea & Taiwan.

We did not. That is the lesson to learn. When you need to buy time to increase supplies, capacity and embed processes you contain aggressively.

But they had capital city outbreaks and firefighting too.

Bach Mai hospital is one of Vietnam’s largest caring for people around Hanoi. At least 45 people connected to the hospital tested positive for the novel coronavirus at the end of March.

uk.reuters.com/article/uk-hea…

It locked down the hospital on 28 March and the Vietnam’s government described the 10-15 day period following the Mar. 28 lockdown at Bach Mai as a decisive in controlling the virus.

How sure are we that this represents the true picture?

Several points of evidence suggest it is.

Hospital bed admissions have not reflected additional numbers.

Labs, despite such extensive testing, are reflecting very low positives.

Funeral homes around Hanoi -no uptick

People were tested and retested several times with multiple negative tests before discharge from quarantine, and people not quarantined who may have been exposed to the virus also tested.

Some time or another the U.K. is going to have to show more humility.

It not only failed to prepare adequately. The Government also failed to take the early aggressive steps necessary to buy itself time.

It sent out messages to the public that it was not too bad in many ways

It did so by maintaining the risk as moderate when NHS providers had raised the risk to “High” at the end of January.

The Gov needed to be honest with itself & the public explaining we were not ready & needed urgent public cooperation to buy time to get in PPE & equipment

Instead it sent out multiple messages and signals that we were ready.

It must have known we were not, for it had failed to address the urgent requirements and warning in Vallance’s report (thought to be June 2019) not to mention multiple Cygnus reports.

When you don’t know a lot about a virus, beyond that it was killing in large numbers despite aggressive lockdown (China) then time is the most important thing to buy accompanied by aggressive up scaling of all key activities to increase knowledge and capacity.

You don’t just give up and hope for the best.

I was shocked to discover how stripped bare contact tracing had become. I knew there had been 10k capacity a decade ago between central PH and Local Gov.

January? 250 in PHE spread across 9 regional centres.

I knew Lab capacity had been rationalised in PH and in hospital labs to some degree but had no idea to what extent.

But that was key early preparation work identified in earlier reports.

It was as if the Government shrugged. “Oh well. We’ll have to make do and mend”

It kept the risk rating as low/medium Jan/Feb/ into March

WHEN the Gov finally got around to telling even the partial truth about the gravity of the situation the public have, largely, been pretty compliant.

TOO ready to stay at home according to that a
eejit Graham Brady.

Had they got the message right right at the beginning, instead of the usual public school bragging covering up poor preparation and performance, then they could have bought time & cooperation to keep the numbers right down, and ramp up home production, test, trace and isolate.

Have a proper plan to protect the vulnerable.

Test. Trace. Isolate to prevent the spread
Keep it aggressively low whilst you manufacture a stockpile of PPE/equipment
Expand labs
Increase knowledge.

GIVE the PPE to Care homes - plus training. Who cares if they are private?