Yet here we are 18 mnths later, post 3 lockdowns of sorts, Alpha then Delta variants increasing the risks & worsening the odds, 45 mill+ fully vaccinated
163,500 Covid deaths (by date of death): deaths & hospitalisations still piling up.
And a Government even sloppier than at the beginning.
The second and third/ fourth waves are unequivocally on Johnson. His choice against scientific advice.
How very Johnson to absent himself from the country when the Select Committee report is published.
Time to remember this Rory Stewart interview on 12th March 2020.
There were political choices to be made.
And Johnson made the wrong ones. And it has cost us huge number of lives and sickness and multi billions spent ineffectively
Worth looking more at Chapter 5 of Spiked (Jeremy Farrar’s book)
And Steven Riley’s unequivocal WRITTEN advice on 10th March 2020 that herd immunity would not work
&
It would be “at enormous human and economic cost”
drawing on his experience of MERS in Hong Kong
And 12th March the clearest possible message from John Edmonds that
“NO I AM NOT!” In caps in response to a question whether he was happy with the U.K. Gov plans (or lack of them)
Whilst the scale, gravity and imminence of the onslaught WERE spelt out at the SAGE meeting you’d never think so from the anodyne presentation of the facts from the minutes.
I remember going out for a meal with friends on my birthday in mid February 2020 and saying (with a feeling of dread) “I don’t think we’ll be doing this again for a while” and getting questioning looks from friends.
So already I was worried about what was coming.
And from then on started limiting my contacts and stopped going to restaurants.
I was in lockdown weeks before the official one. And definitely before the Cheltenham Festival with people arriving for it from 10th March.
So we knew.
At the time.
This is from the Summary of the report.
What a whitewash when it comes to the second wave on.
These bad outcomes were driven by bad political choices and ignored official scientific advice.
NO lessons learned.
Correction. * John Edmunds*
Ooops. Part of the Thread made it onto the Jeremy Vine programme.
I seemed to move between alarm when I saw the speed of double at the end of Feb, - redoubled when Johnson did his shaking hands speech…then a degree of reassurance from Whitty and Vallance..sucked into Jenny Harries’ disparaging mask .
Saw some WHO data and the fact that Italy had early deaths in March. Made me think we had a bit more wiggle room. (Now we know we had Covid deaths at end Jan).
I believed they would cancel the Cheltenham Races, right up to 9th.
And when they didn’t I’ve written “BIG TROUBLE”.
I suspect that uncertainty and moving between fear and some degree of reassurance (sometimes in the same day) and back to fear again was common.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
“The policy says: “Instant messaging is provided to all staff and should be used in preference to email for routine communications where there is no need to retain a record of the communication.”
“Instant messages history in individual and group chats must be switched off and should not be retained once a session is finished.”
“There needs to be really clear and immediate messaging from government around which test [people should] act on. My very clear advice would be that if you have a respiratory infection, stay at home because you’re going to pass it on.”
“But if you’ve got symptoms of a respiratory infection and a lateral flow test that’s positive, I would be working on the assumption that it’s Covid-19 regardless of the PCR result at the moment.”
The rotten decision making preceded the Covid pandemic…and countries like Singapore IMPLEMENTED OUR flu pandemic plan with far FAR greater success…imperfect but FAR better
Because they ACTED on it
And had resourced PH to do so..& gave it clout
But which of us thinks giving the likes of Jenny Harries MORE clout would have made a difference?
It wasn’t more clout she needed but a massive kick up the arse from a political leader who was going to put saving lives and health and well-being at the heart of the response
In China, in the early days of the pandemic it was established that about 21% of (mostly elderly) admissions had a history of diabetes but a further c20% were diagnosed on admission.
Was Coronavirus precipitating diabetes or were these people with it previously but undiagnosed?
“The precise mechanisms for new-onset diabetes in people with COVID-19 are not known, but it is likely that a number of complex interrelated processes are involved”
These include
📌previously undiagnosed diabetes,
📌stress hyperglycemia,
📌steroid-induced hyperglycemia, and
📌direct or indirect effects of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) on the b-cell.