Did the right thing by delaying tier 3 by a week? How many lives will be lost because of this delay?
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
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I mean let's be honest this is exactly the sort of thing that Panorama should be covering isn't it. I don't think enough people outside of social media bubbles are aware of exactly what is going on under the umbrella of this pandemic.That is a scary read...
When it talks about Dido Harding, failing in her role and then being given...basically a promotion...
" Having demonstrated, to almost everyone’s dissatisfaction, that she was the wrong person for the job, Harding has now been given an even bigger role, as head of the National Institute for Health Protection, to run concurrently with the first one. This is the government’s replacement for Public Health England, which it blames for its own disasters. Harding’s appointment looks to me like a reward for failure."
And THEN finding out that her husband is appointed head of anti corruption...
" What is this about? Why is failure rewarded? Why are contracts issued with so little accountability or transparency? There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation, but you might expect the government’s Anti-Corruption Champion to investigate. Or perhaps not. He is John Penrose MP, Dido Harding’s husband. "
Jesus. Coincidence? There's so many 'coincidences' in that article...it's not funny.
They government is pissing about trying to play hard negotiator with it's own citizens for fecks sake. Manchester asked for the money they needed and then reduced that demand, the government offered less than what it can afford just to try and make a point and look strong. They are plain evil and I don't see how you can call it any other way when you look at what they are willing to spend money on as Burnham said.
The above has been covered in more depth in Private Eye for some time, it has been even more depressing reading than usual in these times.
The cronyism is so obvious and opportunistic.
It's not remotely in his ability to delay anything by a week. What are you even on about?
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Very good thread from Public Health Physician on what is needed in Ireland to get through this. Probably relevant in most other countries too.
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Also. A sobering news story on the downsides of shutting your borders.
Going away from the politics side of things a bit..
What's people's opinions on doing sport during this 2nd wave? I play Saturday league, and have been going to training and matches again regularly since around August (stopped originally in March).
I've felt relatively comfortable, as everything's outdoors, people forced to sanitize their hands pre and post match, no shaking hands etc. Although the last few dies of confirmed cases and deaths flying up has got me a little anxious.
Especially as in the last few weeks our assistant manager got a positive Covid test, and a couple of others had to self isolate due to being in contact with someone etc.
Do we think there's almost no risk in getting it outdoors in a football match scenario (unless someone was to cough or sneeze in your face)? Or do you think it's smart to hold off a bit now and get back when things cool off again..
What's people's opinions on doing sport during this 2nd wave? I play Saturday league, and have been going to training and matches again regularly since around August (stopped originally in March).
I've felt relatively comfortable, as everything's outdoors, people forced to sanitize their hands pre and post match, no shaking hands etc. Although the last few dies of confirmed cases and deaths flying up has got me a little anxious.
Especially as in the last few weeks our assistant manager got a positive Covid test, and a couple of others had to self isolate due to being in contact with someone etc.
Do we think there's almost no risk in getting it outdoors in a football match scenario (unless someone was to cough or sneeze in your face)? Or do you think it's smart to hold off a bit now and get back when things cool off again..
I still play football but might stop now.
They’ve released the evidence used to make decisions on the circuit breaker in Northern Ireland. They estimated school closures would reduce the R rate by between 0.2 and 0.5. They’re closed for one week more than they were scheduled to. Hairdressers/Beautician’s are estimated at 0.05, places of worship at 0.1. Guess which are allowed to stay in place for the next four weeks? Hospitality closures are expected to reduce it by 0.1-0.2. Yet despite these decisions it will still be the general public’s fault.
That's not quite what happened is it.
Manchester was offered an amount, asked for more, and when they weren't immediately given what they wanted spent the next week telling anybody who would listen how bad the government is handling this, the situation in Manchester isn't as bad as is being made out, and how the people should pretty much ignore anything they say. Any you wonder why the government didn't respond well to this?
I would still play if i were in England but in Italy the decision has been taken for me, all non professional contact sport has been stopped. I'm not sure i agree with it but then i remember the very first case here, the guy played 5 aside before he was diagnosed and something like half the players caught it.
Yeah, that's the issue, and the fact that the confirmed case in our squad and people isolating etc. have all come up in the last 3 weeks, with none of it happening the few months previous. Also a good chunk of people who play local football aren't the brightest of bulbs, so can imagine a few ignoring symptoms and playing with them.
Although I refer back to that Dutch study that says your risk of catching the virus outdoors is almost 0, and needing to be within the vicinity of someone with the virus for 15 mins + to have enough of the virus load.
How many peoples lives will be ruined as they are not being funded sufficiently, businesses will close, homes will be lost, i really feel for a lot of people.
There would have been no delay had the correct finances been offered from the get go. 100% Burnham did the right thing. Any extra lives lost are on Boris, not Burnham. Any argument against Burnham holds no water at all!
I manage an Under 10s team. I would be devastated for the kids if leagues were stopped again.
We did about 3 months of no football with the initial lockdown and all feedback was that the kids were just festering awar on fornite.
Firstly, that's 'not quite what happened is it'. You're going off information that the government is saying happened, and you actually trust this government given what has happened over the last 8 months? The Government states that there were meetings/phone calls that happened, Burnham denies that events the government says happened actually happened. It's tit for tat, completely based on who you believe. And I personally do not trust this government/prime minister and his cronies especially when money is involved.
Secondly, if the government is offering a certain package, what are we saying 60 million was it, and the Mayor is saying 'listen, we need more than that we've done the calculations on our end and this is what we need to save our economy crashing further'. Why, WHY on earth would you fall back to a 22 million package? This is the most ludicrous part. You give them what you can, which was obviously 60 million. Just because the Mayor is saying 'we need more, that's not going to cut it' doesn't mean you turn around and say 'ah well we offered that, you wanted more so we're going to just give you 22 million.' That is just over a third of the 'supposedly' offered amount, which if they offered that...they can afford that? It's disgusting, that's what I call playing with lives over money.
Thirdly, this isn't just Burnham. Every single MP in the Greater Manchester area, Tory including, is in agreement with him. This isn't one man against the government, this is an entire northern area with all of it's MPs saying 'this is what we need to survive economically'.
Manchester was offered an amount less than other regions offered per capita and when the government further refused to provide what was necessary they made a fuss about it. The government is spaffing billions at Dido Harding and her mates that she's brought in, and hundreds of millions at their other chums who have recently set up dodgy companies. We've got Jenrick handing his own constituency £25m. If they refuse to give a necessary £5m to help their own people in hardship then that shows their true colours. It's indefensible in the greater context of how the government has acted during this pandemic. They are acting out of spite, not necessity.
Dear Lord - not video games! Won't somebody think of the children...
It's been my only form of exercise and enjoyment outside since we restarted it, so I've been quite thankful for it.
But yeah, reading people getting fitness issues long-term from the virus etc. gets me a bit nervous when we're rising like we are now.
Whatever, there's little point in arguing when that is your point of view.
Absolutely, I've read Private Eye for over 30 years since I was 13 or 14 when I picked up my dad's copy. I actually stopped reading it When Boris took power, I just feel we are now beyond satire and have entered a truly dark place as a country.
I suspect they won't have enough resources to protect the most vulnerable, because members of the central government continue to behave like a bunch of cnuts.
Yeah it is either not widely known or not widely cared about. It's only anecdotal but I know a few who fall into the latter. They read about it and don't seem that shocked by it, and without the shock there's no outrage. It is fecking outrageous.
I agree with the general point but they didn't offer 60m and then downgrade it to 22m. That's just political spin. The 22m is there for the public health aspect, it's a separate fund for a separate set of tasks. The 60m or 80m or what they're negotiating over is for businesses, coming from a separate fund for a separate purpose and is in addition to it. I think legislatively it makes a difference and presumably there's an administrative component. Not that it makes a huge difference to the people but the distinction is being blurred for political warfare.
Sad times, that it has come to that. I couldn't stomach reading it at times during Brexit, this is worse probably. The pandemic updates from M.D. are still very good reading, though.
Possibly, but, the point is, they have gone into tier 3 smartly without pissing about. Manchester should have gone in at least 7 days ago and now will have it imposed upon them, putting lives at risk. It is a purely political move.
Khan, in London, requested tier 2, and that with the threat of an expansion of the Congestion Zone, which would really kill London.
In other words the government had the power 7 days ago but spent a week doing nothing before then setting tier 3. The rest is political theatre from the government.
So you are complaining that central Government was trying to get local Government on board rather than imposing it upon them? fecking hell
Well if you're posing that question you're also accepting that the delay was the governments decision. Glad we've cleared that up.So you are complaining that central Government was trying to get local Government on board rather than imposing it upon them? fecking hell
Let's move on to motive. You say because they wanted to get them on board. What does that even mean? In practical terms that is.
And was that more important than the risks caused by the delay which you're so keen to flag?
Right. So what I presume has happened is that local authorities have put together a bunch of plans and costings for mitigating the worst consequences of new lockdowns. In response the government seems to have produced a series of lowball offers that don't even meet the lower bounds set by such plans; successfully gambling that local authorities will have to take what's on offer or stand accused of "playing politics with people's lives".
It strikes me as odd that local authorities angling for sufficient funding are the ones that stand accused of playing politics, while central government appears above this criticism for withholding it in the first place.
Fair play, are the comparisons between other areas still valid. Such as the 41 million?* given to South Yorkshire in comparison to 22million given to us?
The number of people I know of through work that have got COVID or are self isolating in the last month has sky rocketed and its genuinely scary. This virus is everywhere here at the moment. I'm not intending to leave the house unless it's absolutely necessary (work mostly) for the next 6 weeks or more.
You're comparing apples and oranges. £41m for South Yorkshire consists of £11m for test, track, trace (comparison to the £22m), the £30m on top is the business support. The latter is what is Manchester is negotiating.
Isn't that quite a big thing to brush past? You accept that the circumstances South Yorkshire have accepted could leave them without the necessary resources to protect the vulnerable, but you don't even acknowledge why Manchester wouldn't want to accept that, and would feel it appropriate to negotiate to prevent that problem from arising? If their argument was "give us enough money to protect the vulnerable, because the conditions you're imposing on us will inhibit our ability to do so, and here's how much it would cost [presents evidence], and we'll work within these tough but necessary restraints"...wouldn't it be the central government playing political games and putting lives at risk by not meeting those needs, and encouraging a longer negotiation?
My understanding is that they've been a roughly equivalent amount of money for the public health measures (mostly test & tracing) to neighbouring areas, or at least proportionate to the scale of the problem and the resources needed to deal with that scenario. It seems like neither the local nor national governments disagree on that much.
It's the additional funds made available to support businesses and workers that aren't equivalent, as far as I can tell. South Yorkshire are getting proportionately more for that business fund, on a per capita basis, even if they'd agreed to the government's 60m "offer". And I gather that they had to be negotiated up to that number. Burnham wants the c. 80m to make it equivalent, as he understands it, to e.g. South Yorkshire.
So yeah it definitely seems like Manchester is being unfairly treated, albeit it's hard to understand why the government would want to give preferential treatment to South Yorkshire. If they want to be cheap (and invariably they do) then why not be equally cheap. As it's being played out in the political arena different sides are using different numbers and how they've calculated those number isn't the most transparent, so it's hard to say for certain. But it does seem to be disproporationate.
I think they should of got behind the Manchester message and made it a solid United Kingdom wide approach where everyone gets the same amount of help geared towards the size of the population which is covered.
The fact we are openly negotiating deals between different regions in a national pandemic is madness.
Yep, it really does line up with the increased reported numbers, and shuts down all the naysayers who just say it's due to increased testing.
My guess is that they don't like how much coverage Burnham gets and how loud his voice is on futher devolution to the regions. They want to devalue him politically.
It's just the same thing as Trump has been doing in the US. You can't grand stand and blame a virus so you find ways to blame your political opponents instead.
The government can't have been that surprised that a mayor might want to stick up for their citizens rather than meekly accept a cheque (which comes with devolved responsibility and blame).
They've either tried to get Labour signatories to avoid being solely to blame as a party (playing politics) or they've been trying to setup a fight to rally their side (which always works see this thread for proof).
If none of the above was true they'd have made the decision a week ago then given the base money out with further negotiation on specific additional support.
Can't help but laugh at the guardian readers in here. Such a fair and balanced newspaper hehehe.
Extending the half term in the UK was surely an enormous missed opportunity for a circuit breaker type lockdown.
Instead now we face an uncertain winter period with high R number. Struggling to understand the financial metrics or logic of extending local lockdown tier levels which hardly anybody will obey with resultant economic implications and uncertainty over a more wide-ranging national lockdown but shorter in duration to flatten the curve
Instead now we face an uncertain winter period with high R number. Struggling to understand the financial metrics or logic of extending local lockdown tier levels which hardly anybody will obey with resultant economic implications and uncertainty over a more wide-ranging national lockdown but shorter in duration to flatten the curve
What are the figures?
30m for South Yorkshire = £21 per person. +11m (pop 1.4m)
60m for Gtr Man = £21 per person. +22m (pop 2.8m)