Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
Ed Conway Profile picture
@EdConwaySky
Sep 16, 2020 • 8 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
Britain is doing more #COVID19 testing than any other country in Europe. Really! So how on earth are we now in a situation where the testing system is on its knees just at the very moment we most need it?
Here's my longish read about what went wrong: news.sky.com/story/coronavi…
I've spoken to lots of people involved in testing and three critical decisions stand out:
1. Scarred by the events of spring @DHSCgovuk vowed to ensure care homes got enough tests this time. Prudent decision but upshot is 100k of the 250k daily usable capacity has been eaten up.
2. Govt committed to getting pupils back to school but underestimated the surge of demand for testing from students. Some schools have firm rules that every fever => test. About half of the recent rise in test requests is from schools. Tests for kids aged 5-15 quadrupled.
3. The working assuming in @DHSCgovuk was that if there was a surge in cases it wouldn't come til Oct/Nov. But #covid19 spread faster both in Europe and here than they anticipated. And quarantine didn't stem the spread as much as they hoped.
Perhaps testing would have held up if just one or two of the above had been the case. But all three happening at once has short circuited the system. And since they were expecting the peak in Oct/Nov, new capacity (500k tests) isn't due to arrive until then 😦
In the meantime @DHSCgovuk plans to rely much more on behavioural rules (rule of 6 etc) than the forensic control and analysis it was hoping to get from test and trace. The next few weeks will be v nervy since with testing in trouble officials worry we are flying in the dark...
I'm informed that the avg cost @DHSCgovuk is paying per test is around £100. Crude calculation wld imply that we have already spent £2bn on tests and if testing is near capacity in the coming six months test and trace will have pretty much burnt through its £10bn budget by spring
Bad luck, miscalculation and one or two poor decisions. Combine it all and you're halfway towards understanding what's gone wrong with Britains #COVID19 testing system. @SkyNews long read here: news.sky.com/story/coronavi…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Ed Conway

Ed Conway Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @EdConwaySky

Ed Conway Profile picture
Mar 18
NEW
Britain's motoring lobby group the @SMMT has insisted that an unprecedented 2,000% increase in car exports to Azerbaijan has NOTHING to with Russia and is explained by the fact that this former Soviet state is a “flourishing market in its own right”.
This is rather... odd
🧵 Image
Before we get onto that, some background (thread on this here👇).
TLDR: UK car exports to Russia have collapsed, because of sanctions. But UK car exports to countries neighbouring Russia have suddenly risen by nearly the same amount. Esp Azerbaijan
Following my original report we now have new figs on UK car exports.
They show flows to Azerbaijan have continued. £42m in Jan. 3rd highest EVER.
Now there's no way of being 100% sure what's going on here. you can't track consignments beyond Azerbaijan (if they ever reach Az) Image
Read 13 tweets
Ed Conway Profile picture
Mar 12
🚨The strange tale of British luxury cars & Russian sanctions🚨
🧵A thread on some v striking charts which raise some disturbing questions abt the car industry.
Let's start at the start.
Wealthy Russians love high-end British cars.
Don't just take it from me. Take it from her 👇
So when Russia invaded Ukraine, it was not without significance that all Britain's major carmakers said they would stop sending their cars to Russia.
Anyway, shortly afterwards, the UK imposed sanctions which made it illegal to do so anyway...
There are two sanctions of note here.
First, UK companies cannot send "dual use" items to Russia which could be turned into weapons.
Second, there was a specific ban on the sale of any car over £42k👇
So it's pretty simple. No cars. Esp not luxury cars. legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2022/452/…
Image
Read 15 tweets
Ed Conway Profile picture
Mar 6
💷BUDGET THREAD💷
A few thoughts on what was supposed to be a big event but ended up feeling, well, a wee bit thin.
And that’s the first thing to say.
Strikingly, this Budget was HALF as big as the Autumn Statement. Look at the difference between the scorecard totals 👇
Image
Image
Was it a tax-cutting Budget?
I mean… not really.
Well, OK, the net impact is taxes aren’t going up as quickly as they were 6 months ago.
But (and I think this is pretty crucial) THEY’RE STILL GOING UP. The tax burden will be higher at the end of this Parliament than before.
Here’s a good illustration of that.
The bars here show you the impact, across the economy, of the decision a few Budgets ago to freeze tax allowances. The bars are in negative territory.
People are paying more in taxes as they get dragged into higher thresholds… Image
Read 14 tweets
Ed Conway Profile picture
Feb 23
🧵Here's a thread about an obscure economic theory from a century and a half ago, which is about to become a MASSIVE deal.
⚡️It helps explains why tackling climate change is going to be v v hard. Some say impossible.
The story begins with this building👇
Yes it's the @SphereVegas.
Not just a massive entertainment venue but also the world's biggest screen. By all accounts it's an amazing spectacle both outside and in, where there's also a ginormous wraparound LED screen (also one of the biggest anywhere)
Get up close to that enormous exterior screen & it looks v different.
You see an array of little glowing pucks, each one decked with 48 light emitting diodes (LEDs). These act as the "pixels" of the image you see from miles around. These things are magic businessinsider.com/what-the-las-v…
Image
Read 32 tweets
Ed Conway Profile picture
Feb 21
🚨How British companies are bolstering Vladimir Putin’s war machine🚨
A depressing thread.
But an important one.
With some pretty shocking charts.
Let’s begin with the “official” picture. It suggests UK trade with Russia has collapsed since Feb 2022. Down by 74%… Image
Now let's fill in the data.
Look how we're no longer exporting cars or heavy machinery to Russia. Because the govt is well aware this stuff could be repurposed into weapons. So the official line is that this is a big success story.
Looks like Russia's economy is being starved Image
But clearly the Russian economy isn't doing as badly as all that. Indeed Russia is due to grow faster than any G7 nation this year 👇
And that's just the economy. Now look at the battlefield and Russia is looking v strong. No shortage of weapons/drones etc despite sanctions
Why? Image
Read 17 tweets
Ed Conway Profile picture
Jan 20
With Tata steel having just confirmed the closure of the two blast furnaces at Port Talbot, here are a few important datapoints.
First, UK steelmaking has collapsed faster, over the past half century, than ANY other country in the world save for Venezuela.
Pretty shocking👇 Image
The Tata plan is to replace the two blast furnaces with two electric arc furnaces.
There are some strong arguments - not all of which come back to net zero.
One is that Britain produces more than enough scrap steel to satisfy its needs. At the moment this is mostly exported Image
Electric arc furnaces exist to RECYCLE steel via a massive electric current.
UK has long been an outlier in having v few of them. Look: less, proportionally, than nearly any other country in the world.
Essentially we stuck with blast furnaces far longer than most other nations... Image
Read 10 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

Send Email!

:(