Is 'following the science' just an excuse? And who really 'saved the NHS?'

SHOULD we listen to wise men? Or wise people indeed? And who are the wise people anyway? What is SAGE, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies? (well, you can see the link below).

Much is being made today (by me too) of the fact that a senior Government advisor and another spad attended meeting(s) of SAGE. And, we are told, took an active part in discussions. And, we are told, reported back to the PM and Cabinet.

Now before we go on we need to be clear what SAGE's role is. It is NOT to make policy. It is to examine, with the benefit of scientific and technical knowledge, the nature and implications of an emergency and report back to Government at whatever levels seems appropriate but usually Cabinet.

Their deliberations are confidential (for frankly obvious reasons) and the membership changes to suit the mergency. They are not intended to be influenced by politicians or political expediency but to deliver a scientific assessment with recommended actions and anticipated outcomes. I know this since SAGE had a role in some of he gas and oil industry emergencies with which I had sme involvement.

SO what is wrong with Dominic Cummings attending?

Well for a start he is who he is – an avowed anarchist with an agenda to cause disruption. But worse his very presence would have affected the process. After all, he is known to have (for unfathomable reasons) the ear of the PM. But if he took part as well how can we know how he influenced the outcomes? And if he did what price the mantra “we follow the science”?

And why did he report back himself when that was the job of SAGE? What influence did his political version have against the science?

It is scandalous no matter what gloss the PM and his cronies put on it, that the very basis for scientifics decision, may have been tainted at source by one of the PM's advisors. That will not do. And if it has resulted in deaths then Dominic Cummings must stand beside his leader and take the fall in due course.

TALKING of deaths, I am sure I am not alone in being appalled at the vast thousands of deaths that have occurred in care homes and whatever the euphemism 'the community' stands for.

That it was happening in the way that it has did not occur to anyone whatever they may now claim. For I am certain that everyone in this country believed as I, my family and friends believed. That when someone became sufficiently ill they called 111. And if they were bad enough they went into hospital.

But now we know this is not what happened. For reasons which I am sure will be inquired into old people (not unlike me) who were in care homes (unlike me) were left to die without the benefit of hospital, ITU or ventilators.

Now I have had pneumonia three times. Once I was 'blued and two-ed' across the Pembrokshire hills to Carmarthen Hospital with my organs failing as I failed to oxygenate. On two other occasions I lay gasping for air in ITU. I was not ventilated which would have been a mercy since it involves a powerful sedation.

Instead I lay gasping for air and in total terror that each breath might be my last. It was not the way to go. Not at all.

Yet this is what our failure to take these old people into hospital consigned them to. And in the eye of their carers who were helpless and without the hand of their loved ones to calm them.

THIS IS THE TRUE SCANDAL of covid-19.

And when the time comes for the reckoning I sincerely hope that Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock, Dominic Raab and most of all DOMINIC CUMMINGS is there to take the fall. Along with the heads of every bank or finance house which caused austerity which caused austerity and robbed us of our emergency back up.

The fact is that WE did not save the NHS. The people who did that were the thousands who lay dying in care homes and their carers who together paid a huge price to keep our ITUs working.

More on SAGE here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies-sage#membership

(TOMORROW I shall ask why we never used the Nightingale Hospitals properly so that the NHS could get back to saving the rest of our lives.)

Hancock's Half Hour or Will the greatest casualty of Covid-19 be truth?

HISTORY tells us that there are lies, damned lies and statistics. This mantra could well be the slogan for the Age of Coronavirus. We are so assaulted by data that we are losing the will to discern fact from mis-fact.

And our politicians are not helping by daily moving their own true north to suit the numbers cascading through. And with it all, the real truth begins to lie, tarnished and bleeding, on the arena sand.

Of course there are those quick to apologise for the ministers, suggesting they have a tough job, could we do it better, what's your bright idea sunshine... Wrong headed.

I thought it might be fun to back up a bit and take a longer look at what we think we know, what we know we think and what we have absolutely no clue about.

If you can remember the beginning of the year you may recall the absent prime minister. We now know that it was not just around Christmas and New Year that our PM took a long breather in the sun (paid for by another). It was a lot longer that he was off-watch.

On the fourth Friday of January the first of five briefings took place for Cabinet members in Briefing Room A in Number 10. Health secretary Matt Hancock breezed out to tell us the coronavirus risk to the UK was “low”. The PM was not there. And he missed the next four COBRA sessions. Presumably he took Hancock's half cocked assessment at face value.

The spin on this dereliction continues.

In the same month of January, the same Matt Hancock told the House of Commons that the UK was “well-prepared and well-equipped to tackle any contagion”. He added we “had a world-leading test for Covid-19”. Once again the spin swirls but what we now know is that we were not well prepared. In fact so badly prepared that front-line staff are still going into battle without suitable protection. And so poorly equipped that we had to bend every sinew to avoid the NHS being overwhelmed. Indeed we had to build entire hospitals and buy in every type of ventilator available. And as for the world-leading test? Let us hope the world was not hoping for us to lead since we seem even now not to have a reliable test.

Way back you will recall being told that – a bit like China – would build whole hospitals in exhibition centres and football stadia to house thousands of additional ITU wards, vast numbers of ventilators. We built them. There were those who cautioned that staffing could be an issue. But ahead we went. Brilliant work but where are the doctors and nurses and others? Nowhere to be seen since our entire NHS is already creaking under the pressure of, guess what, covoid-19 infections. London's miracle unit has taken 40 odd patients.

We have been told throughout that we had enough ventilators. Right up to the moment when we admitted we did not. But had we really taken steps to find more? Well, prominent people offered salvation but nothing has come of that. And yet real manufacturers had offered to build more of the conventional variety but told us they were being ignored. Along with, we now know, hundred of potential PPE makers who were not Burberry or Tory party donors. OK, that is a bit cynical – but only if wrong...

Meantime we have been told we have been following the science. Of course, although given recent attitudes to 'experts' we could be forgiven for doubting it. But are we really to accept that the scientists told us NOT to cancel major events like the Cheltenham Gold Cup (250,000 attendees) and Liverpool v Atletico Madrid (3,000 visitors fresh from covid-19 rife Madrid). Really? Or did no one ask their opinion on those examples but simply ascribe their faulty assessment of risk (low) coupled with Hancock's hopeless assessment of preparednes (none) and let it rip? For rip they surely have.

Back to testing. I think most of us took a sharp intake of breath when Matt Hancock promised 100,000 tests A DAY by the end of April. And then we saw them rolled out to a few remote locations - and remain empty while staff were too far away and way too busy to trek to the units. Why did they not go in vans, two crew, one set of kit and visit the front line peripatetically. And we are still some 80,000 tests short of Hancocks Half-baked target. 

I always stop at about this point. It's is a whole A4 page now and your forbearance cannot be assumed. Unlike that of the general public.... 

So how many people have covid-19? How many infected by coronavirus?

SAD fact is we have no idea of how many have been infected. In fact no idea of how many may be ill right now.

Some will be in hospital and we have a grasp of that number. It comes up each day during the appallingly named 'presser' – or press conference to sane people.

Some will be ill in care homes but we have no idea how many. Nor it seems have we any intention of helping them by taking them into hospital for ITU and ventilation. So they die.

Some it seems will be ill at home being cared for by their GP. Really? And some will die there it seems.

Now forgive me for being a fool but I thought that to die you had to run out of breathing ability. And that when the patient started to get bad we should call 999 and the blood wagon would arrive with paramedics to start the effort to save our lives.

Apparently you can be so bad in a care home or even at home that you die before they can even call 999. Or so it does appear.

And despite this being a highly infectious disease and therefore notifiable to the authorities that is not happening as it should. So now we fear even the ONS figures – the last line of statistical defence – is not necessarily up to date even when it is a week behind.

Of course all this would be worrying to you and I but it is manna from heaven for our government.

The last thing they want is for you and I to have the same information as they have. After all, now we know about the PPE cock up we are incandescent and even YouGov may have trouble massaging Boris's approval ratings. Although DomCum is back so maybe all is well in cloud cuckoo land.

They lie. We knew that. But I doubt we even dreamt of them lying on the industrial scale they are now.

• Ventilators? No sweat we have thousands on order... oh, we don't.
• ITU beds? We'll build our way out of... staff? Oh, yes there is that...
• Lockdown! What do you mean no jobs, no taxes, no economy... we'll plant another money tree.
• PPE? No problem, we lead the world, best prepared... what do you mean run out?
• Ventilators! New design ones! Dyson to the resc... what, don't work? Don't do the job?
• PPE? Burberry to the rescúe... what other companies? 150! Selling abroad?
• Vaccine! OxbridgeImp to the rescue... but, but, testing? What's that?
• Boris sick. Better. Worse. Not worse. Recovering. Oxygen. Recovering. Happy in Chequers. Back soon.

And it goes on, and on...

Still, look on the bright side. Now we know that it's not just Boris: all of the cabinet are useless. That they have been following the science. The scientists they pay to tell us stuff. Make ministers look good (ish).

Still, it could be worse, the orange turnip thinks it is all lies and we should just grin and bear it while Making America Grate Again. Typo? No, that is NOT a typo. It is a forecast.

It is a very ill wind that blows no good at all

THERE is always a good side to everything. Even an everything as grimly dreadful as the coronavirus. And as has been the case in past crises the good to come of bad is the simple human kindness that has been generated.

Maybe we can expect the front line troops to perform beyond reason. Nurses, medics, care professionals all know that under these conditions it is there willingness to advance when most would pull back that will get us through it.

Their rewards are slight. Most are poorly paid, they work long hours and when the chips are down it turns out that there are never enough chips in reserve. Going into battle without a weapon is one thing; doing it without adequate protection quite another. But they do it. 

The charity I am referring to is that form of kindness which, for so much of the time, we bemoan for its absence.

The thank you when you step aside to allow people to pass socially, safely apart.

The pulling back from the corner on the sight of others coming on.

The willingness, at last perhaps, to wait quietly in line, six feet apart and alone for the most part. And then mostly to shop quietly and in the approved direction.

The actual lack of large gatherings such that the rare ones are remarked exceptions.

The presence in the park of a just a few strollers and mostly in ones or two, well apart and changing route early to avoid clashes.

The fact that while social media is alive with grumble and fumble there is little real anger and rare vitriol. And lots of good natured contributions to a smile or a laugh or a few minutes peaceful enjoyment of a piece of music, a song, an artwork, a poem, or just someone telling their little story for others to enjoy. Some people have even wanted forgiveness for some politicians!

Stressed mums, (and dads), short of cash but suddenly rich in time, mostly out of their depth but quietly getting on with teaching Tommy and Annie.

Teachers, suddenly freed from classroom stress, giving up this hard won free time by turning their hand to on-line learning, one to one and on call.

The delivery people who have had to change their methods but have done it willingly and now stand back and ask if you are “alright with that?” And thank you as if they owed us anything really.

In our flats garden the ladies shorn of coffe mornings and teas and chat and games sessions setting out the chairs to sit 9 feet apart in the sunshine without a grumble.

The publican plaintively asking on Twitter how they were going to cope with a shut pub and the pubco still asking for rent. But not angrily. Just wistfully.

The hotels that have turned over to letting rooms to the homeless, with grace where the very idea was once anathema.

And how come the postie is so cheerful? It is not a great job and now it carries unquantified risk.

So is this how it will be? If this dread virus refuses to go away, be controlled or expunged?

Will we start a new life walking on the bright side of life? Wouldn't it be loverly...

Looks like a shot in the foot, dear boy

AND so it seems indeed. I appear to have managed to forecast a week or two back pretty much exactly what exiting the lockdown looks like and my forecast that I and my ilk may be a long time emerging is correct.

Damn!

Have to admit I am not very happy. This bloody virus has already cost us a month in France – we should have arrived in Audech yesterday! I have not seen my daughters for four weeks. And there is a huge risk my most favourite restaurant – the Maison Bleue – will pay the price like many others.

Damn!

It is also four weeks since someone other than me made my our morning coffee. Or I could get any supplies of salted caramel fudg. Or chat with Lynn (don't panic; Janet listens in).

Damn!

And four weeks since we were able to wander lightly in the streets of Sudbury or lunch at The Lounge!

Damn!

And now, finally it turns out to be true. I actually thought I was maligning Boris Bloody Johnson when I said he was lazy, incompetent and feckless. Now the Sunday Times proves he is all of that and worse. Even the inneffably dreadful Michael Gove admits Boris missed FIVE (FIVE!) Cabinet Office Briefings in Cabinet Office Briefing Room A – otherwise now called COBRA by the dismal MSM.

Damn!

Exactly what sort of 'cabinet' is it when the chief cabinet maker is swanning off somewhere else, I ask you. And a global virus crisis! What did he need to get his bloody interest? After all his goddamned father is in the high risk group! Oh, well, maybe...

Damn!

Now I have little hope of even being able to spend next winter in Andalucia. We missed this year because Janet had to have a major op in December to correct a serious spinal issue that significantly spoiled the whole of 2019 for us. Happily that leg is now fine – it is the other one that troubles her now!

But it makes no damned difference. We shall be incarcerated in this bloody flat for months to come. Oh we might just get to walk out together more often, even visit a shop with a mask on.

But coffee at Spencers or the Barn? Forget it.

Lunch at The Lounge Huh.

A fine dining experience courtesy of Pascal and Karine Canavet at the Maison Bleue? Duh!

And as for resurrecting a month in France for the autumn... but hang on...

Did I hear word of a possible vaccine? Is that September? I cannot believe it really but we are due some better luck...

Damn me if I don't see light at the end of the tunnel...