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Coronavirus

Parklaner81 said:
I think you make an interesting point here, but it strikes at a more general problem.

Think about the public conversation and general culture around the NHS in recent years. You simply aren't allowed to criticise it. Much more than that, it seems that even failing to treat it with anything much below a religious-style zeal will get you quickly ostracised from the conversation. Look at the trend for Conservatives MP's wearing NHS pin badges. Like it or not this background environment and culture (driven very largely by the media) has a massive impact on the way politicians act.

It is really any wonder, when you consider the general background in which they operate that the Government might have (mistakenly?) over-prioritised the protection of the NHS? If indeed it does turn out to be a mistake, criticising them for it would be rich in my opinion. They'd have been slaughtered had they done any other.

We simply don't allow our politicians to make these kinds of decisions any more.
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You're absolutely right.

I suspect most people who say we have to protect the NHS actually want us to protect free at the point of use healthcare. Does anybody really care who the ultimate owner of their GP surgery is? Or the hospital that they get rushed to when unwell? People just want good quality healthcare and they don't want to have to pay per use of it. That's not even remotely the same as having a huge monolithic drain on taxpayers with little to no incentive for savings.

The language used by politicians regarding the NHS doesn't help either. How many times have you heard a politician describe hiring more nurses as "investing in the NHS?" That's not investing - that's the polar opposite of investing. It's tying our taxpayers into more spending in perpetuity.

Other countries have shown that healthcare can be both good and "free" without requiring an NHS or anything like it.
 
ricky2tricky4city said:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ibody-tests-may-produce-contradictory-results

the minefield of testing.
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The testing minefield is the next big news I suspect. Where many were lauding the success it looks like they were doing so without actually knowing if the kits actually worked. I saw a news snippet on the TV where is is saying that in places like Germany and Co where they have had better success with Covid-19 it probably comes alot more from an earlier and effective lock down rather than testing which is out, in their case likely 1.8m more had it than they thought.
 
Mikey10 said:
If only we’d had a couple of European countries who were two or three weeks ahead of us in being hit by the virus so that we could have had an idea what the effects were going to be...
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It's a fair enough statement and I'm sure there's many people reflecting on that (myself included) but Vallance in the health committee says it wasn't clear that decision should have been made a few weeks earlier and isn't clear now:

In terms of what would I do in retrospect, if we knew then what we know now, I think that’s something for the future to look at and certainly there will be times when evidence didn’t allow decisions to be made that you could make now, and there’ll be times at which you look back and say that something might have been done differently, I’ve got no doubt about that.

When you look at everything that happened, the speed at which it happened, maybe days either way would have made a difference, but I think it’s difficult to look back and say three weeks was an obvious point to do it, I don’t think that was clear, I don’t think it’s clear now.
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ricky2tricky4city said:
Not without knowledge of how many tests are being completed per day per nation.

'How they beat Covid-19' is a terrible headline for an infographic. This virus is a long way from being in the past tense
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I was listening to Laurie Garrett the other on this and it couldn't be more correct. It wasn't the happiest interview I've heard.
This is the start of radical change in most people's lifestyles (in the developed world anyway). Hopefully, it is the dawn of realisation that things couldn't go on as they were anyway.
 
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scaramanga said:
You're absolutely right.

I suspect most people who say we have to protect the NHS actually want us to protect free at the point of use healthcare. Does anybody really care who the ultimate owner of their GP surgery is? Or the hospital that they get rushed to when unwell? People just want good quality healthcare and they don't want to have to pay per use of it. That's not even remotely the same as having a huge monolithic drain on taxpayers with little to no incentive for savings.

The language used by politicians regarding the NHS doesn't help either. How many times have you heard a politician describe hiring more nurses as "investing in the NHS?" That's not investing - that's the polar opposite of investing. It's tying our taxpayers into more spending in perpetuity.

Other countries have shown that healthcare can be both good and "free" without requiring an NHS or anything like it.
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This is the problem though, isn't it? The background narrative that I mentioned earlier means that politicians almost have no choice but to say things like this - because they know that failing to do so will be a quick route to opposition. Or at least to the front page of the grau, complete with '...monster...' headline.
 
scaramanga said:
You're absolutely right.

I suspect most people who say we have to protect the NHS actually want us to protect free at the point of use healthcare. Does anybody really care who the ultimate owner of their GP surgery is? Or the hospital that they get rushed to when unwell? People just want good quality healthcare and they don't want to have to pay per use of it. That's not even remotely the same as having a huge monolithic drain on taxpayers with little to no incentive for savings.

The language used by politicians regarding the NHS doesn't help either. How many times have you heard a politician describe hiring more nurses as "investing in the NHS?" That's not investing - that's the polar opposite of investing. It's tying our taxpayers into more spending in perpetuity.

Other countries have shown that healthcare can be both good and "free" without requiring an NHS or anything like it.
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The best healthcare systems in the world have 'something like' an NHS. The NHS itself is amongst those at the top table.
 
In case it helps anyone.

Filing of comapny accounts can extend their deadline by 3 months without questioning and avoid any penalties. Apply via the companies house website BEFORE your submission date.
 
AuroRaman said:
The best healthcare systems in the world have 'something like' an NHS. The NHS itself is amongst those at the top table.
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I have experienced healthcare in 4 countries, either directly or with a companion - UK, Spain, Germany and the US.

The UK is right at the bottom of that list.
 
scaramanga said:
I have experienced healthcare in 4 countries, either directly or with a companion - UK, Spain, Germany and the US.

The UK is right at the bottom of that list.
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Anecdotal experience. I have experienced healthcare in probably double that amount (and lived in three different continents with varying systems). UK comes second to NZ. However, that's anecdotal on my part too.

Edit: Just to add, I am also a clumsy fudger.
 
AuroRaman said:
Anecdotal experience. I have experienced healthcare in probably double that amount (and lived in three different continents with varying systems). UK comes second to NZ. However, that's anecdotal on my part too.

Edit: Just to add, I am also a clumsy fudger.
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The UK often ranks low in terms of healthcare against other rich countries when objective measures are used too.
 
So I reckon the joint BA/VA announcements and the impact of Gatwick will cost around 50 k jobs in the crawley/Sussex area.

That’s more job losses than deaths.
 
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