Thread by @Sakura509

Marking #LiarJohnson, #Hancock and UK Government's homework on response to COVID-19 👇

"Woeful"

"You can cut the data in different ways but the UK sits at or close to the top of the league tables for death whichever way you slice it"

"The UK on the other hand is among countries that seem to be significantly under reporting deaths compared to excess deaths."

"On August 12, PHE tweaked the way it defines a Covid death. Rather than counting any death which followed a positive test as a Covid death, it said only those deaths which occurred within 28 days of a positive Covid test would be counted."

Ministerial decision!!

"There is logic to this – you don’t want to count a death from a road accident as a Covid death just because the individual had previously had Covid-19, for example."

"But the change has made the GAP between the UK’s reported deaths and excess deaths even wider than before, cutting the number of total recorded deaths by more than 5,000."

"So where does the UK stand if we rank countries by excess deaths per capita, the measure which Prof Whitty says the nation’s performance should ultimately be judged by?"

"On this measure, the UK has the highest excess death rate in Europe. Globally it comes in third after Ecuador and Peru, although data is not available for all countries."

"There is one final way of crunching the data. We can compare the number of people reported to have died of Covid-19 with the number who tested positive for the virus. This is also known as the “case mortality rate”."

"A country that tests aggressively for Covid-19 will have a low case mortality rate, because it identifies mild infections as well as more severe cases. A country that tests fewer people on a per capita basis... will have a high case mortality rate because it is missing cases."

"On this measure, the UK has the WORST record in the WORLD. The most likely explanation is that our testing regime, although improved, is still not picking up a very large number of positive cases."

So much for #LiarJohnson and #Hancock's boasts of it being "world beating"!!

"But what of the economy? Some have suggested (against the historical evidence from the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic and other outbreaks) that there is a binary trade off between measures taken to protect lives and economic performance."

"That thinking may help explain why the UK’s pandemic preparedness plan, in common with others in the West, did not include the aggressive social distancing measures and stockpiles of PPE common to many south east Asian pandemic plans."

Economy 1st - people's lives less so.

"The pandemic is far from over and the picture may yet change but the UK also performs poorly in terms of relative economic loss."

"Death and the fear of death clearly correlate with a county’s ability to keep the cash registers ringing as the chart below shows."

telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…

"Business leaders have accused the Government of “scaremongering” by suggesting people working from home will be first for the chop, as a new survey shows nine in 10 people intend to stay away from the office for the time being."

Economy 1st!!

"Adam Marshall, director of the British Chambers of Commerce, said “mature conversations” were needed between employers and employees, rather than dire warnings from Ministers."

Employees are without a doubt the, 'wealth creators'!!

"It came after The Telegraph quoted ministers and Government sources saying that people who work from home will be more “vulnerable” to redundancy than colleagues who have been at their desks during the pandemic."

"Businesses have worked hard to build up trust with their people over the last six months. They've learned what works – and what doesn't.”

"The scale of the task facing Boris Johnson as he tries to get people back to their offices to save the economy was made clear as a union boss branded the Government "dinosaurs" for wanting a full-blown return to office-based working."

"Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA civil servants' union, said ministers needed to accept the "world of work has changed", while Trade Union Congress boss Frances O'Grady argued many staff now wanted "a better balance of office and home-based working"."

"The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said there should be "no question of people's jobs being vulnerable if they do not return to the office"."

"Interim commission chairwoman Caroline Waters said: "Having seen how it is possible to work flexibly and retain productivity, we cannot backtrack now.""

"Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, said: "I think there's a limit, just in human terms, to remote working."

Evidence suggests UK Government does NOT listen, learn or understand what key stakeholders are advising them.

Tory donors calling the shots!!

"Author Professor Alan Felstead said the results suggested there could be a "major shift" from the traditional workplace."

"He said: "What is particularly striking is that many of those who have worked at home during lockdown would like to continue to work in this way, even when social distancing rules do not require them to."

"These people are among the most productive, so preventing them from choosing how they work in the future does not make economic sense.”

telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/2…

"Boris Johnson’s “get back to the office” campaign suffers from one, rather fundamental flaw: it’s none of the Government’s business."

"Ministers are free to set the rules and guidance on social distancing, face-mask wearing and the like, even if they seem to have made a right old mess of it so far, but they should not be telling companies how to manage their affairs within those rules."

"If it makes sense to have workers return to the office, no doubt firms will instruct employees accordingly. But if they have found home working a realistic substitute, and a meaningful cost saving, then that’s their affair."

"Ministers should not be attempting to micromanage such companies."

Deflecting attention and accountability from UK Government?

Perhaps #LiarJohnson & UK Government ought to focus on putting their own house in order NOT tearing it apart to satisfy party donors and Brexiters.

"All the same, we plainly do need some sort of a return to office working if the present, V-shaped recovery in economic activity is to be sustained."

"As...Robin Pagnamenta, points out, ... it’s largely happened on the Continent. It’s a bit of a mystery as to why not here."

"The broader economic ecosystem that revolves around still-deserted city centres is an important part of the economy as a whole, or rather used to be. For it to be replaced by alternatives will take many years, involving much unemployment in the meantime."

This comment 👆 applies equally to the hollow promises made to manipulate and persuade UK electorate to vote for Brexit - oblivious of the ensuing chaos and damage wreaked upon economy, businesses, industries and livelihoods.

The ultimate victims are society and communities.

"Take 9/11, when it was widely thought that people would never fly or work in tall buildings again. Change is best managed in an evolutionary way, rather than revolutionary. Overly rapid change will always have painful consequences."

#LiarJohnson & #Cummings ought to take note!

"We must therefore think radically about how to adjust other norms in order to accommodate this transition. There are no doubt many of them to consider, yet here I’m going to address just two of the most pressing."

"Public transport is one, brought to its knees by home working and absent tourists. For how much longer can we support half-empty trains, tubes and buses?"

"The other is the business rates system, a big source of funding for local government."

Proposals with a long term view are likely to be more sustainable than short term 'quick fix' incentives, monetary or otherwise.

Revisions to norms are evolutionary and long term.

Proposals to tear apart and 'disrupt' constitutional norms guarantee only wreckage and chaos!

telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/…