Spectator N0 2654 By La Jerezana
Crosswords1 min ago
Is It Now Fruitless
Having daily briefings,( note I say daily) same questions, same answers, very little to be achieved. The time spent preparing drafts for speeches / correcting/altering and so forth. Are there really enough hours in the day to waste. Would it not be more lucrative for these people to spend their time on ideas / planning of what might work, and might not, what would be a way forward, you get my meaning I'm sure.
The public still need to know what's happening and when, but I'm sure this could be condensed into a briefing every third day, giving more time for the powers that be to work on the main problem. Daily totals for infection / deaths can be given to the media.
Should they feel any new, urgent news need to be given to the public, this can be arranged in no time at all.
The public still need to know what's happening and when, but I'm sure this could be condensed into a briefing every third day, giving more time for the powers that be to work on the main problem. Daily totals for infection / deaths can be given to the media.
Should they feel any new, urgent news need to be given to the public, this can be arranged in no time at all.
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We are told that 21,092 people have died of Covid-19 in the UK.
But that is only hospital deaths. It does not include the 4,343 care home deaths in the last fortnight. Or the probably thousands who have died at home.
So the official UK figure is very misleading and it is impossible to try to extrapolate the true picture from it.
But that is only hospital deaths. It does not include the 4,343 care home deaths in the last fortnight. Or the probably thousands who have died at home.
So the official UK figure is very misleading and it is impossible to try to extrapolate the true picture from it.
Gromit 13.32, if that is the best available from the UK government then it is pretty poor. I asked advice on AB quite some time (weeks ?) ago for finding something as informative as I am able to follow at other countries' sites but it did not then exist so I stopped looking beyond worldometers - things have not really improved.
Other countries provide numbers and breakdowns into (totals) of deaths by age and gender, figures for national regions, numbers in ICU, numbers on a ventilator, numbers in isolation/quarantine, recovered totals, how many cases from abroad and which foreign countries infection has come from, how many cases diagnosed within quarantine and how many outside it, and in at least one case actually case totals literally municipality by municipality - the list goes on and on as to what is available and these are updated daily.
I guess the UK just isn't up to that sort of reporting (inability) and/or too secretive to want to.
To respond to the original post: I am almost totally disinterested in what politicians want to say about all of this, the facts speak for themselves (so long as they are available). I would prefer the health service professionals, police and other public officials to set the policy by recommendation (requiring government authorisation due to limitation of powers). I would expect the country to have been prepared with a plan created by the professionals and for the politicians largely to stay out of their way and not turn the efforts into a political issue. The best way to keep the public informed is to give them access to the information, beyond which announcements and clarification of them through questions and answers is all that is needed (nil politician airtime if at all possible). Sadly, some level of repetition of the recommendations/rules is almost certainly essential.
Other countries provide numbers and breakdowns into (totals) of deaths by age and gender, figures for national regions, numbers in ICU, numbers on a ventilator, numbers in isolation/quarantine, recovered totals, how many cases from abroad and which foreign countries infection has come from, how many cases diagnosed within quarantine and how many outside it, and in at least one case actually case totals literally municipality by municipality - the list goes on and on as to what is available and these are updated daily.
I guess the UK just isn't up to that sort of reporting (inability) and/or too secretive to want to.
To respond to the original post: I am almost totally disinterested in what politicians want to say about all of this, the facts speak for themselves (so long as they are available). I would prefer the health service professionals, police and other public officials to set the policy by recommendation (requiring government authorisation due to limitation of powers). I would expect the country to have been prepared with a plan created by the professionals and for the politicians largely to stay out of their way and not turn the efforts into a political issue. The best way to keep the public informed is to give them access to the information, beyond which announcements and clarification of them through questions and answers is all that is needed (nil politician airtime if at all possible). Sadly, some level of repetition of the recommendations/rules is almost certainly essential.
>Other countries provide numbers and breakdowns into (totals) of deaths by age and gender, figures for national regions, numbers in ICU, numbers on a ventilator, numbers in isolation/quarantine, recovered totals, how many cases from abroad and which foreign countries infection has come from, how many cases diagnosed within quarantine and how many outside it, and in at least one case actually case totals literally municipality by municipality - the list goes on and on as to what is available and these are updated daily.
Given that there is a pretty big margin of error on all this data (even deaths which should be the easiest are open to different interpretations- eg of covid/with covid, hospitals/all) including lots of time lags and different classifications, and everyone has different testing regimes, I'm sceptical that the masses of data you refer to are helpful to anyone other than those top scientists who are struggling to interpret them.
But my starting point here is that the UK isn't rubbish at everything compared to our EU counterparts
Given that there is a pretty big margin of error on all this data (even deaths which should be the easiest are open to different interpretations- eg of covid/with covid, hospitals/all) including lots of time lags and different classifications, and everyone has different testing regimes, I'm sceptical that the masses of data you refer to are helpful to anyone other than those top scientists who are struggling to interpret them.
But my starting point here is that the UK isn't rubbish at everything compared to our EU counterparts
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ich, you question about the people who die in care homes.....This is not intended to dismiss their lives or to dismiss the grief of those who have lost loved ones in care homes. Many many of the people in care homes are very frail indeed and of those, many also have end stages dementia. Being taken into hospital for any reason can be very stressful and distressing for them. The more extreme forms of medical care may be very distressing for them and in the end not helpful...so basically with the best will in the world, you torture someone and then they die anyway. In everyday non pandemic life, as well as respecting DNR decisions, which only affect resuscitation, medical decisions for people in nursing type residential care are often taken around keeping someone comfortable rather than giving them heroic treatments when they become ill...things like oral antibiotics rather than intravenous ones because the person won't tolerate the line and will continually pull out the needle...same with hydration etcetera.
