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Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 16:37 - May 28 by D_Alien
Oh come on!!
Sometimes, it's disappointing to see arguments put forward that take no account of reality
Do you really expect any country to have excess (massive excess, in this case) testing capacity with publicly-owned labs, fully-staffed, sat idle at huge cost just waiting for a pandemic to arrive?
Sure, countries like Germany had much greater testing capacity, commensurate with their more extensive pharmaceuticals industry and no public body to act as a millstone around it's utilisation. All this is well-known, and if anything is an argument in favour of agile private enterprise versus publicly-owned inertia
The separation of PHE from governmental control was done to counter the oft-used accusation that the NHS was a 'political football'. The NHS, in it's primary role as a means of treating everyone regardless of ability to pay, is absolutely precious. The bureaucracy which surrounds it less so, and PHE was a prime example of this back in March, outwith the control of the government at that point
Could you specify anything to do with this pandemic that the government is responsible for? If there are private or public inefficiencies then I can think of no other institution other than government who is responsible for addressing that.
On the specifics of testing, why do they are the figures for the amount of people tested not appearing recently? At least give a reason, because that’s the important number surely?
As of 9am 28 May, there have been 3,918,079 tests, with 119,587 tests on 27 May.
269,127 people have tested positive.
As of 5pm on 27 May, of those tested positive for coronavirus, across all settings, 37,837 have sadly died. pic.twitter.com/zj0HjOtMDG
— Department of Health and Social Care (@DHSCgovuk) May 28, 2020
Note: apologies if I’ve missed that reason being given anywhere.
Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 10:53 - May 28 by tony_roch975
But there's the problem - clearly Boris Johnson has decided to protect Mr Cummings rather than stand up for all of us who, as a nation united in common defence, abide by the full intent of the guidance, because he is so dependent on him for election success. As Michael Portillo (ardent Brexiteer and Boris fan) said yesterday on Radio 4s PM - Boris is a bystander, watching on as others make decisions he later criticises. Boris Johnson is our elected Prime Minister who leads the nation, Mr Cummings is an un-elected adviser (however prescient) - seem to recall we spent 3 years voting to leave institutions where such un-elected apparatchiks disdainfully rule over us.
[Post edited 28 May 2020 10:54]
I think Portillo also mentioned that the governing mantra of the Johnson crew is " Never admit to a mistake, never apologise, never say you're sorry ".
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Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 18:27 - May 28 with 1693 views
Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 16:56 - May 28 by BigDaveMyCock
Could you specify anything to do with this pandemic that the government is responsible for? If there are private or public inefficiencies then I can think of no other institution other than government who is responsible for addressing that.
[Post edited 28 May 2020 16:58]
Sure. Once the scale of the outbreak became apparent, the government was responsible for ensuring that NHS capacity wasn't overwhelmed by mobilising public, private and armed forces resources to prevent that from happening, very successfully
The government was also responsible for bringing forward measures to try and protect the incomes of individuals and the capability of businesses to survive - as far as possible, and with inevitable cases where this would be more difficult due to individual circumstances - and it has thus far been largely successful in doing so. Plenty of water to go under that particular bridge yet as we take the first tentative steps out of lockdown
On the minus side, it's highly likely that going into full lockdown sooner would've prevented the transmission of a considerable number of infections which would translate into higher mortality figures. I don't doubt that's what an eventual enquiry will find. I doubt very much whether an enquiry (if it's even within the remit of the enquiry) will find that the delay was due to either inattention or incompetence, but rather due to a reluctance to curtail freedoms at that stage but which with the benefit of hindsight was overly cautious
There have also been issues around the acquisition and provision of PPE of course, probably the key source of anguish prior to the Cummings issue. It'll be interesting to see what an enquiry makes of that, whether there have been genuine errors or whether the ramping up of provision from the normal 200 end users to around 60,000 combined with the problems of kit being found to be not fit for purpose on arrival from abroad should be taken into greater consideration by those critical of the government, in what has clearly been an emotive issue. I've no doubt errors will have been made during these hugely complex operations
Whatever mistakes have been made will be analysed for sometime to come with the obvious benefit of hind sight.
There are somethings that i as a non expert member of the public is uncomfortable with.
The main one being the 14 day quaranteening for people coming into the UK..i can't understand that when we look at NZ and their grand total of 22 deaths effectively shut their borders completely we seem to be playing a game of chance almost with a process that won't be adhered to 100% and that the consequences of not doing so are catastrophic..how do others see this?
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Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 18:57 - May 28 with 1641 views
Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 18:39 - May 28 by frenzied
Whatever mistakes have been made will be analysed for sometime to come with the obvious benefit of hind sight.
There are somethings that i as a non expert member of the public is uncomfortable with.
The main one being the 14 day quaranteening for people coming into the UK..i can't understand that when we look at NZ and their grand total of 22 deaths effectively shut their borders completely we seem to be playing a game of chance almost with a process that won't be adhered to 100% and that the consequences of not doing so are catastrophic..how do others see this?
Looking at the upcoming changes and the associated figures that are supporting the moves, that game of chance which you mention and a crossing of fingers seems to be the route right now. While that’s always been the case as we’ve nothing to measure this against, when you see statements like those by Vallance today, it raises questions why, with a brand new test and trace system just starting, there’s a need to go to groups of six meeting from Monday? Why not two household bubbles initially etc? Could just be me!
Sir Patrick Vallance says UK is 'at a fragile state' as he reveals alarming infection figures https://t.co/if9J3I1aX3
Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 17:38 - May 28 by mingthemerciless
I think Portillo also mentioned that the governing mantra of the Johnson crew is " Never admit to a mistake, never apologise, never say you're sorry ".
Thereby following the precedent set by Thatcher and followed consistently by Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron and May.
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Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 19:32 - May 28 with 1603 views
Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 17:24 - May 28 by 442Dale
On the specifics of testing, why do they are the figures for the amount of people tested not appearing recently? At least give a reason, because that’s the important number surely?
As of 9am 28 May, there have been 3,918,079 tests, with 119,587 tests on 27 May.
269,127 people have tested positive.
As of 5pm on 27 May, of those tested positive for coronavirus, across all settings, 37,837 have sadly died. pic.twitter.com/zj0HjOtMDG
— Department of Health and Social Care (@DHSCgovuk) May 28, 2020
Note: apologies if I’ve missed that reason being given anywhere.
Possibly due to lost tests, double counting each test and having to retest. The people actually tested will be much lower, hence it’s disappearance
It's slightly alarming that we're still near 400 deaths a day and Dominic Cummings is opening schools to more children on Monday. He has listened to the evidence of his own scientists (SAGE), ignored all seven of their suggestions and come up with another idea altogether! They can't say they're following the science on this one.
Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 19:48 - May 28 by BartRowou
It's slightly alarming that we're still near 400 deaths a day and Dominic Cummings is opening schools to more children on Monday. He has listened to the evidence of his own scientists (SAGE), ignored all seven of their suggestions and come up with another idea altogether! They can't say they're following the science on this one.
I agree, as far as I can see the evidence doesn't justify a significant relaxation of the measures at the moment.
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Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 20:42 - May 28 with 1534 views
Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 19:48 - May 28 by BartRowou
It's slightly alarming that we're still near 400 deaths a day and Dominic Cummings is opening schools to more children on Monday. He has listened to the evidence of his own scientists (SAGE), ignored all seven of their suggestions and come up with another idea altogether! They can't say they're following the science on this one.
That's because there is not a near 400 deaths per day.
The deaths announced are not for the previous day. Of the deaths announced today some actually occurred last month. If you look at the actual deaths per day in hospitals the numbers for the past week or so have been less than two hundred and are falling and well below the peak in early April. Obviously add to this deaths in care homes and other settings but the information about date of death takes longer to arrive from these settings.
To put things into perspective there were over 500,000 deaths in the UK in 2018, around 1,400 per day. Whilst there has been a number of excess deaths the number of deaths from all sources are trending back to the five year average. All this information is readily available on the Internet.
3 children under 14 have direct with Covid-19. In the same time period 300 have died of other causes. 15 children a year die as a result of injuries in parks.
Yes nothing is entirely risk free but the level of risk needs to be put into perspective and weighed up against the risks of not easing lockdown.
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Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 21:39 - May 28 with 1487 views
Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 19:53 - May 28 by mingthemerciless
I agree, as far as I can see the evidence doesn't justify a significant relaxation of the measures at the moment.
Looking at the estimates for daily new cases in England (8K/day), the openings of shops/schools on Monday, watching carefully what's happening in East Asia & combining this with what we know so far about this virus --> feels like mistakes are being repeated from early March.
Then ease measures while testing widely & w/ good data systems that alert public whether it is red/amber/green in their area. Need clusters of cases identified rapidly & broken up before tips over into sustained community transmission. If it tips, hard to avoid another lockdown.
This is the sort of view that seems to make more sense, especially around getting this new test and trace system up and running/established as effective.
Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 21:39 - May 28 by 442Dale
Looking at the estimates for daily new cases in England (8K/day), the openings of shops/schools on Monday, watching carefully what's happening in East Asia & combining this with what we know so far about this virus --> feels like mistakes are being repeated from early March.
Then ease measures while testing widely & w/ good data systems that alert public whether it is red/amber/green in their area. Need clusters of cases identified rapidly & broken up before tips over into sustained community transmission. If it tips, hard to avoid another lockdown.
This is the sort of view that seems to make more sense, especially around getting this new test and trace system up and running/established as effective.
The app, which is now seemingly not as important as it was a short while ago is unlikely to be running properly until the end of June , so that is 6 weeks behind what Hancock said
Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 20:42 - May 28 by isitme
That's because there is not a near 400 deaths per day.
The deaths announced are not for the previous day. Of the deaths announced today some actually occurred last month. If you look at the actual deaths per day in hospitals the numbers for the past week or so have been less than two hundred and are falling and well below the peak in early April. Obviously add to this deaths in care homes and other settings but the information about date of death takes longer to arrive from these settings.
To put things into perspective there were over 500,000 deaths in the UK in 2018, around 1,400 per day. Whilst there has been a number of excess deaths the number of deaths from all sources are trending back to the five year average. All this information is readily available on the Internet.
3 children under 14 have direct with Covid-19. In the same time period 300 have died of other causes. 15 children a year die as a result of injuries in parks.
Yes nothing is entirely risk free but the level of risk needs to be put into perspective and weighed up against the risks of not easing lockdown.
I think everyone knows that the figures don’t just relate to the deaths of the day before, but if the average over several days is around 400, then that must be the figure. The excess death figure is close to the 5 year average?, not according to the ONS.
Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 20:42 - May 28 by isitme
That's because there is not a near 400 deaths per day.
The deaths announced are not for the previous day. Of the deaths announced today some actually occurred last month. If you look at the actual deaths per day in hospitals the numbers for the past week or so have been less than two hundred and are falling and well below the peak in early April. Obviously add to this deaths in care homes and other settings but the information about date of death takes longer to arrive from these settings.
To put things into perspective there were over 500,000 deaths in the UK in 2018, around 1,400 per day. Whilst there has been a number of excess deaths the number of deaths from all sources are trending back to the five year average. All this information is readily available on the Internet.
3 children under 14 have direct with Covid-19. In the same time period 300 have died of other causes. 15 children a year die as a result of injuries in parks.
Yes nothing is entirely risk free but the level of risk needs to be put into perspective and weighed up against the risks of not easing lockdown.
Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 21:39 - May 28 by 442Dale
Looking at the estimates for daily new cases in England (8K/day), the openings of shops/schools on Monday, watching carefully what's happening in East Asia & combining this with what we know so far about this virus --> feels like mistakes are being repeated from early March.
Then ease measures while testing widely & w/ good data systems that alert public whether it is red/amber/green in their area. Need clusters of cases identified rapidly & broken up before tips over into sustained community transmission. If it tips, hard to avoid another lockdown.
This is the sort of view that seems to make more sense, especially around getting this new test and trace system up and running/established as effective.
I'll raise you this! As one poster under a tweet of Devi's said 'you have been one of the biggest scaremongers throughout all of this'. I suspect that she is cautious.
The reality is that all scientists are making best guesses based on their interpretation of the evidence available to them. This will invariably be slanted towards their nature and where they stand on the cautious to optimistic spectrum.
I am surprised why countries who have exited lockdown before us have not experienced a 'second wave'. Maybe it is still to come? Hopefully it wont and like with SARS, Covid-19 will become less prevalent and weaker.
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Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 22:06 - May 28 with 1434 views
This world-beating Track and Trace Appless App then.
Person A has a grievance against Person B but hasn't seen them in a while. Person A gets the virus. Person A phones the Tracer and lies that they've been in contact with Person B. They do this because it means Person B is stuck in the house for 2 weeks now and can't earn a living. Person B gets a call from the Tracer who can't tell them who the infected person is (Person A) due to GDPR.
Could this happen or are there safeguards to prevent it?
Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 22:06 - May 28 by BartRowou
This world-beating Track and Trace Appless App then.
Person A has a grievance against Person B but hasn't seen them in a while. Person A gets the virus. Person A phones the Tracer and lies that they've been in contact with Person B. They do this because it means Person B is stuck in the house for 2 weeks now and can't earn a living. Person B gets a call from the Tracer who can't tell them who the infected person is (Person A) due to GDPR.
Could this happen or are there safeguards to prevent it?
Not sure, but Persons C, D and E could also come to your BBQ to ensure A and B are friends again.
Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 21:46 - May 28 by rochdaleriddler
I think everyone knows that the figures don’t just relate to the deaths of the day before, but if the average over several days is around 400, then that must be the figure. The excess death figure is close to the 5 year average?, not according to the ONS.
I would not be so sure about that, even Piers Morgan regularly misquotes death figures. Not really as many of those announced deaths could be weeks ago or even last month, as was the case today. The graph below gives a clearer picture of hospital deaths per day
The account above provides a number of regularly updated graphs which are more trend focus.
I don't know how you came to the conclusion that I think the excess deaths figure is close to the average? Of course it isn't! If you look at the lines on the ONS graphs for the current deaths and the five year average there is a massive, almost box shaped gap for weeks, but yes, the current level of deaths has been falling back towards the five year average for a while. I suspect within a month or two deaths per week will be around the five year average figure.
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Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 23:09 - May 28 with 1371 views
Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 18:39 - May 28 by frenzied
Whatever mistakes have been made will be analysed for sometime to come with the obvious benefit of hind sight.
There are somethings that i as a non expert member of the public is uncomfortable with.
The main one being the 14 day quaranteening for people coming into the UK..i can't understand that when we look at NZ and their grand total of 22 deaths effectively shut their borders completely we seem to be playing a game of chance almost with a process that won't be adhered to 100% and that the consequences of not doing so are catastrophic..how do others see this?
Totally agree with you Frenzied. Closing borders has proven to be critical in fighting Covid. Taiwan learned from the SARS outbreak, they closed the border to China in December, and they had also stockpiled and re-vamped their healthcare system from that event. Here, once we closed the border under 100% quarantine rules, we had control over the virus (although we did not know that at the time). Lockdown kept people in their homes, it soon became apparent that "clusters" were seen, and full attention given to people with links to those clusters. The UK government is now gambling with lives, slowly opening up "for the sake of the economy". A flawed policy IMHO, with new virus cases every day, that economy will stutter on for months. Meanwhile, Taiwan and here, we are opening our domestic economy as from now, without fear. There is a worry for me...talk of extending our bubble to Australia. Not a case our traditional rivalry, the concern is that Australia states they have low cases, but they have hardly done any testing either. I thank the NZ government for being decisive, and taking advantage of being an "Island". Boris and his team fought to be an economic Island with Brexit, but failed to do the same with the virus.
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Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 23:16 - May 28 with 1361 views
Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 22:22 - May 28 by isitme
I would not be so sure about that, even Piers Morgan regularly misquotes death figures. Not really as many of those announced deaths could be weeks ago or even last month, as was the case today. The graph below gives a clearer picture of hospital deaths per day
The account above provides a number of regularly updated graphs which are more trend focus.
I don't know how you came to the conclusion that I think the excess deaths figure is close to the average? Of course it isn't! If you look at the lines on the ONS graphs for the current deaths and the five year average there is a massive, almost box shaped gap for weeks, but yes, the current level of deaths has been falling back towards the five year average for a while. I suspect within a month or two deaths per week will be around the five year average figure.
The most relevant death stat on recorded Covid deaths is and always has been (once the virus got out of control) the seven day rolling average due to reporting inconsistencies. It currently stands at 256. The data from each day's presentation are given on line.
Just as there is a massive gap between the 7-day rolling average recorded (tested) cases of Covid (2312) and reality (~8k), there is also a big gap between "recorded" deaths (above) and excess deaths. The figures that Fergus Walsh put up today on the 6pm news for excess deaths were very worrying. The trend was the governments friend until recently, with the gap closing fast and the curve coming down, but it took a nasty kick up again recently. Not sure of scale as the x axis was in months. It could be a statistical anomaly, but this figure, taken in conjunction with an R close to 1 suggests the brakes might be coming off too soon. Of course everyone wants to get back to how things were asap. The flip side of doing that too soon and a second peak though is a longer period in lockdown in total. None of us want that.
Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 23:09 - May 28 by downunder
Totally agree with you Frenzied. Closing borders has proven to be critical in fighting Covid. Taiwan learned from the SARS outbreak, they closed the border to China in December, and they had also stockpiled and re-vamped their healthcare system from that event. Here, once we closed the border under 100% quarantine rules, we had control over the virus (although we did not know that at the time). Lockdown kept people in their homes, it soon became apparent that "clusters" were seen, and full attention given to people with links to those clusters. The UK government is now gambling with lives, slowly opening up "for the sake of the economy". A flawed policy IMHO, with new virus cases every day, that economy will stutter on for months. Meanwhile, Taiwan and here, we are opening our domestic economy as from now, without fear. There is a worry for me...talk of extending our bubble to Australia. Not a case our traditional rivalry, the concern is that Australia states they have low cases, but they have hardly done any testing either. I thank the NZ government for being decisive, and taking advantage of being an "Island". Boris and his team fought to be an economic Island with Brexit, but failed to do the same with the virus.
Thanks for that..
I read that the proposed travel bubble with Austrailia is not due to be up and running until Sept..again a steady and cautious approach whereas the UK appears to be gung ho in its actions..i feel its becoming more politically led than Science guided.
I see S Korea have had a small spike and again shut down many schools quickly to deal with it.
I understand concerns re the economy here..personally as i work in retail i fully expect to be made redundant in June..its a situation many will face..but for the good of the health of the nation I'm not blaming anyone else,..i will deal with it as best i can
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Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 07:09 - May 29 with 1252 views
Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 21:52 - May 28 by BartRowou
It's not about children dying.
That is why there is a choice, if parents are lucky enough to have a choice. I know someone who is not sending her son back to school, even though he is eligible, as his older sister is type one diabetic. That is her choice which should be respected.
The pictiure that I get from the teachers that I know is that anyone who has an underlying health condition or lives with someone who is shielding then they do not have to go back to working in school until September at the earliest. Again this is the right thing to do, as not all pupils will be back in school, not all teachers need to. Contrary to what the union leaders would tell you there are many teachers who are more than happy to go back to work.
Whilst I understand the concerns of those who are at risk, but they can take actions to mitigate their level risk. There are a significant amount of people who are not at risk and they should be able to make a judgement about what they are prepared to do and what they are at not. Call it luck, lifestyle choices or a bit of both but nobody in my immediate circle is classed as being at risk, therefore in my judgement of the available data my son can go back to nursery on Monday.
Just out of interest if pubs and restauarants reopen at the beginning of July would you be going to them?
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Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 07:30 - May 29 with 1229 views
Should Dominic Cummins resign? on 23:16 - May 28 by DaleiLama
The most relevant death stat on recorded Covid deaths is and always has been (once the virus got out of control) the seven day rolling average due to reporting inconsistencies. It currently stands at 256. The data from each day's presentation are given on line.
Just as there is a massive gap between the 7-day rolling average recorded (tested) cases of Covid (2312) and reality (~8k), there is also a big gap between "recorded" deaths (above) and excess deaths. The figures that Fergus Walsh put up today on the 6pm news for excess deaths were very worrying. The trend was the governments friend until recently, with the gap closing fast and the curve coming down, but it took a nasty kick up again recently. Not sure of scale as the x axis was in months. It could be a statistical anomaly, but this figure, taken in conjunction with an R close to 1 suggests the brakes might be coming off too soon. Of course everyone wants to get back to how things were asap. The flip side of doing that too soon and a second peak though is a longer period in lockdown in total. None of us want that.
Thanks for that graph. Something similar to that is what I was looking for but you get that many graphs from so many different sources, on a daily basis. The NHS website also releases data and the deaths per day is expecially useful, as is the data on age distribution and the present of underlying conditions. Unfortunately it is only data for deaths in hospitals but it can give patterns to provide perspective such as 91% of deaths in hospitals are by those 60+ and nearly 55% are by those 80+ and that only 1% of deaths have been by people under 60 without underlying health conditions. If the data from care homes was presented in such a way and aggregated then the figures would be even more skewed towards the older end of the scale.
A headline on The Times today says that 7 in 10 who test positive for the virus show no symptoms. I suspect many more people than the recorded figures have been infected.
As you rightly say with graphs it is all about scale. I saw a graph on excess deaths earlier in the week that was weekly on the x axis and the y axix started in the thousands, therefore incrementing at a lower rate between hashes. Maybe my optimistic nature became seduced by it. Although that is not to take away from the fact that there have been a significant amount of excess deaths. It was interesting that yesterday for the first time the top end of the R scale was moved from 1 to 0.9. Another sign of improvement, but there is still a long way to go.
What I do not understand is why there has not been a second wave in any of the countries who have exited lockdown before us. As expected there have been some brief local spikes, but not the predicted significant increases.
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