Coronavirus

[theakston2k]

People realise that COBRA is just the name of a briefing room right where meetings are held that don’t always need the PM’s attendance?

[pauld]

People realise that COBRA is just the name of a briefing room right where meetings are held that don’t always need the PM’s attendance?

Of course. The point is that the fact he didn't bother to attend 5 successive meetings on Covid-19 shows how little importance he attached to it.

[pauld]

On the other side of the coin I think the government have acted very well with financial help.

I'd be largely minded to agree, albeit the schemes they have put in place have been badly undermined by the banks. Sunak should either offer 100% guarantees or remind the banks who bailed them out when they fucked up in 2008 and threaten them if they don't start the money flowing to businesses that need it.

But this is a public health emergency and the govt's actions (or lack of) in that area have been catastrophic

[theakston2k]

Of course. The point is that the fact he didn't bother to attend 5 successive meetings on Covid-19 shows how little importance he attached to it.

But that article refers to COBRA as a ‘committee‘, the fact they’ve got that wrong is pretty fundamental and pretty piss poor journalism.

[pauld]

But that article refers to COBRA as a ‘committee‘, the fact they’ve got that wrong is pretty fundamental and pretty piss poor journalism.

It's also used as a shorthand for the Civil Contingencies Committee which is the committee charged with responding to national emergencies. If that's what you're focusing on, I think you might have missed the point

[Pax Romana]

Sorry, I was perhaps a little ambiguous. I meant the decision to run down/fail to maintain the stockpile of PPE for precisely this eventuality over the last 7 years, then the more immediate failure to get adequate supplies of PPE in Jan/Feb/early March when it was clear this was coming, and even now the ongoing failure to engage with small manufacturers who I keep seeing on Twitter crying out to supply PPE but claim that they are being ignored. All of which has led to the current situation where, as you say, health workers are faced with the choice of treating patients without proper protection or simply not treating them which is no choice at all. That is what I meant was criminal.

Ok sorry, understood

[Pax Romana]

But that article refers to COBRA as a ‘committee‘, the fact they’ve got that wrong is pretty fundamental and pretty piss poor journalism.

But is it 'pretty fundamental' though? 

The article states that Boris delayed taking action long after he was being advised by the experts that this was a real threat to the uk and as a direct consequence lives were lost.  That is either totally correct, partially valid but somewhat overstated or totally wrong. 

Whether they got some minor details wrong or split an infinitive or misspelt something is irrelevant.

[theakston2k]

 

It's also used as a shorthand for the Civil Contingencies Committee which is the committee charged with responding to national emergencies. If that's what you're focusing on, I think you might have missed the point

Thats the name of meeting held in ‘Cabinet Office Briefing Room A’ there are hundreds of other meetings held in same room that may or may not need the PM’s attendance. If you are going to use that as a stick to beat him let’s have the agendas for said 5 meetings and judge for ourselves whether he should be there. Instead to put an ambiguous statement saying it’s ‘unusual for the PM to miss COBRA meetings’ is factually incorrect.

If he’s missed Civil Contingencies Meetings then that’s another matter, but that’s not what the article says. Yes I may be splitting hairs but it just makes the journalists come across as either amateur or with an axe to grind.

[swindonmaniac]

:headhurts:Thats the name of meeting held in ‘Cabinet Office Briefing Room A’ there are hundreds of other meetings held in same room that may or may not need the PM’s attendance. If you are going to use that as a stick to beat him let’s have the agendas for said 5 meetings and judge for ourselves whether he should be there. Instead to put an ambiguous statement saying it’s ‘unusual for the PM to miss COBRA meetings’ is factually incorrect.

If he’s missed Civil Contingencies Meetings then that’s another matter, but that’s not what the article says. Yes I may be splitting hairs but it just makes the journalists come across as either amateur or with an axe to grind.

Fair Comment.

[pauld]

:headhurts:Thats the name of meeting held in ‘Cabinet Office Briefing Room A’ there are hundreds of other meetings held in same room that may or may not need the PM’s attendance. If you are going to use that as a stick to beat him let’s have the agendas for said 5 meetings and judge for ourselves whether he should be there. Instead to put an ambiguous statement saying it’s ‘unusual for the PM to miss COBRA meetings’ is factually incorrect.

If he’s missed Civil Contingencies Meetings then that’s another matter, but that’s not what the article says. Yes I may be splitting hairs but it just makes the journalists come across as either amateur or with an axe to grind.

You're massively splitting hairs. Even Gove isn't disputing that Johnson missed the meetings and that these were the top level meetings between govt, civil service and scientific advisers to determine how the nation responded to Covid19. And Johnson couldn't be arsed to attend, symptomatic of  filure at the top levels of govt to acknowledge how serious the situation was. Through a combination of laziness and complacency the govt failed to take the Covid19 outbreak seriously enough early enough,  as a result of which the death toll in this country has been many times higher than it needed to be and we are still massively behind the curve on PPE, testing etc. Attempting to excuse that level of negligence by attacking a commonly used journalistic shorthand - all the major news outlets refer to the COBRA meetings as a shorthand, it's not because they don't know what the meetings are or where they're held, it's just a commonly used shorthand - is missing the point by miles.

[RobertT]

Watched Bill Maher interview Dan Crenshaw, a pretty articulate Republican who made some good points that Bill struggled with.  However, one of the points was fundamental to the issue with a lot of the Wests initial response, and articulates everything that is shown to be wrong by that article as well.

When responding to criticism of Trumps slow response he focussed on shutting off travel from China, which was fair enough, but then claimed that February was spent busily analysing data and trying to determine what course of action to take.  Which describes the exact process being outlined here as well.  That is where it went wrong.  He asked what would expect a country to do when only 100 cases are being reported, shut the country down?

Yes.  That is the point.  South Korea had recently had a test run, where they got it wrong.  They reviewed their actions and determined a stronger more immediate response was needed.  I believe they actually took the UK Pandemic plan and used that as the basis for their response to Covid.  As soon as they heard China had an outbreak of a respiratory virus, they assumed it would spread to them.  They enacted the Plan working on the assumption it would spread easily, rapidly bringing testing to production, contact tracing (an extreme version that traced credit card purchases not just relying on  people’s memory of where they had been and when, among other invasive efforts)  and treated it like a worst case scenario.  Now, they may still have to be more extreme and lockdown at some point because we do not have a vaccine, but they pretty clearly had a plan and followed it.  The same plan we all had and ignored it.  A plan that was devised after a real life test run.

Crenshaw response is the problem.  Govt. had forgotten to prepare and was playing it by ear, trying to figure it out rather than, yes, over reacting straight away.

[Banker]

Nearly 6000 new cases in hospital reported today. This partial lockdown is not working.

[Jimmy HaveHave]

Nearly 6000 new cases in hospital reported today. This partial lockdown is not working.

Williamson doing the BBC briefing isn't the right person to give the county the latest update

[Batch]

Nearly 6000 new cases in hospital reported today. This partial lockdown is not working.

actually it is to an extent, or we'd have massively more than that.

[Ardiles]

I'm going to stop listening to these daily briefings.  Questions never answered directly.  No reassurances given.  No one in charge.  Rudderless.  Seriously, what's the point?  Who actually thought sending Gavin Williamson out to say precisely nothing was a good idea?  The lack of planning/preparation for this is unforgivable.

Shower of bastards, the lot of them.