O/T. The Government's handling of Covid

[ramAnag]

Put things in perspective

https://news.sky.com/video/thailand-...ities-12052503

With respect Tricky it doesn’t ‘put things into perspective’ at all...it just provides a different, slightly irrelevant perspective which says more about Thai driving habits than it does about anything to do with Coronavirus.

These ‘few thousand’ deaths you mention are in the region of 42,000 now I believe, so rather more than ‘a few’ and while there are so many deaths despite lockdown how many more do you think there would have been had the country not gone into partial ‘shut down’?

I don’t think things have been handled well. I do think we have suffered from a lack of leadership and that the British and U.S. governments - as the figures would appear to support - have been particularly ineffectual, but the lockdown was necessary.

[Trickytreesreds]

With respect Tricky it doesn’t ‘put things into perspective’ at all...it just provides a different, slightly irrelevant perspective which says more about Thai driving habits than it does about anything to do with Coronavirus.

These ‘few thousand’ deaths you mention are in the region of 42,000 now I believe, so rather more than ‘a few’ and while there are so many deaths despite lockdown how many more do you think there would have been had the country not gone into partial ‘shut down’?

I don’t think things have been handled well. I do think we have suffered from a lack of leadership and that the British and U.S. governments - as the figures would appear to support - have been particularly ineffectual, but the lockdown was necessary.

Right thats gone right over your head hasn't it?

Firstly, Thailand was the topic. Thailand is ( I know, I've seen it) one of the worlds craziest road user places in the world. It costs thousands of lives and yet no one has battered an eyelid over there. The punishment is a joke, as is the lack of payouts for victims. Yet NO ONE CARES. COVID comes along and plunges a people already struggling to eat, into poverty. Yet COVID deaths are a fraction of the deaths caused in traffic. Perhaps you can explain the logic to me here regarding urgency? Thailands COVID death rate is 1.7%, four times lower than the global average.

It seems to me in your eyes, that COVID is the new Black death and every other problem takes second place.
The deaths from the economic collapse around this, are going to dwarf your COVID fear.
I've watched your arguments about schools, but said little. I understand your loyalty to teachers etc. But perhaps the 60 000 cancer patients may think they are being a tad selfish, not helping out with doing their bit to get the economy going and normality ASAP.
You say lockdown was necessary. I disagree. It needed control that's all. Sweden didn't lock down at all and they suffered no worse than us.
Fear is palying mind games with you.

[ramAnag]

Right thats gone right over your head hasn't it?

Firstly, Thailand was the topic. Thailand is ( I know, I've seen it) one of the worlds craziest road user places in the world. It costs thousands of lives and yet no one has battered an eyelid over there. The punishment is a joke, as is the lack of payouts for victims. Yet NO ONE CARES. COVID comes along and plunges a people already struggling to eat, into poverty. Yet COVID deaths are a fraction of the deaths caused in traffic. Perhaps you can explain the logic to me here regarding urgency? Thailands COVID death rate is 1.7%, four times lower than the global average.

It seems to me in your eyes, that COVID is the new Black death and every other problem takes second place.
The deaths from the economic collapse around this, are going to dwarf your COVID fear.
I've watched your arguments about schools, but said little. I understand your loyalty to teachers etc. But perhaps the 60 000 cancer patients may think they are being a tad selfish, not helping out with doing their bit to get the economy going and normality ASAP.
You say lockdown was necessary. I disagree. It needed control that's all. Sweden didn't lock down at all and they suffered no worse than us.
Fear is palying mind games with you.

Erm...actually the ‘topic’ is ‘The Government’s handling of Covid’. You may want to talk about Thailand’s traffic related death toll but that’s not the ‘topic’ and it’s not really relevant to the topic.

If you’ve ‘watched my arguments about schools’ you’ll realise they’re not actually built around my ‘loyalty to teachers’. I don’t actually feel any ‘loyalty’ to teachers...along with MA I just probably understand more about that profession than anyone else on here.
The welfare of adults working within schools has to be a concern, but my main argument has always been over the impact that a full return to crowded classrooms will have on subsequent ‘spikes’/second wave. Schools can control their environments to a large extent with reduced numbers, they cannot control the mixing that then goes on when social distancing is no longer possible or that which takes place within the home or en route to and from school.

Concern and ‘fear’ are very different things.

[Ram59]

Maybe, with hindsight, they should have had CV hospitals dealing exclusively with CV patients and others handling the usual day to day stuff of A&E, heart, lung, liver, brain, cancer etc treatment rather than "furlough" them in favour of CV treatments.

I said weeks ago, that the Nightingale hospitals should have been fully opened and where possible, patients transferred to their nearest one. All new cases should also go to the Nightingale hospitals.

This would result in many hospitals being able to return to normal.

[Andy_Faber]

Of course not, and I agree with your comments about going abroad...but why do we suddenly announce these things at 10.00 pm in the evening and seemingly give people thirty hours (I think) to get home which just - judging from the TV pictures - leads to horribly overcrowded
ferries etc.
One ‘expert’ (non-government) yesterday was actually telling people that they could manage the drive from Southern Europe in that time but weren’t allowed to stop for fuel/toilets/refreshments. Helpful that.

36 hours might have been better but I agree with the short notice. Did I mention we had a visitor who came over for just two days, the 14 day rule kicked in as she had her first meal with us and she just sucked it up in good grace (she chose to isolate on return rather than scoot back), everyone chancing it abroad should do the same IMO and be bloody thankful they aren’t amongst those who are still locked down through immune issues etc

[Andy_Faber]

I said weeks ago, that the Nightingale hospitals should have been fully opened and where possible, patients transferred to their nearest one. All new cases should also go to the Nightingale hospitals.

This would result in many hospitals being able to return to normal.

Agree on that

[ramAnag]

I said weeks ago, that the Nightingale hospitals should have been fully opened and where possible, patients transferred to their nearest one. All new cases should also go to the Nightingale hospitals.

This would result in many hospitals being able to return to normal.

I do remember you saying that in the relatively early days of the lockdown. It made sense then and it makes sense now, at least from a ‘layman's’ point of view.
Just a pity our Health Secretary and PM do not appear to be blessed with such common sense.

[swaledale]

Maybe, with hindsight, they should have had CV hospitals dealing exclusively with CV patients and others handling the usual day to day stuff of A&E, heart, lung, liver, brain, cancer etc treatment rather than "furlough" them in favour of CV treatments.

The issue with that from someone I know who is high up locally in the NHS was that there wasn't the trained staff available to be able to staff the hospitals. Apparently, and this is an insiders perspective not mine,, if the Nightingales had been fully used, it would have created a serious issue due to staff shortages etc.

One can't just "find" trained staff able to deal with seriously ill patients in intensive care. Never mind the fact that there NHS is 40,000 nurses short, due to the Gov ending paid training and freezing pay in previous years. Lots of staff jumped ship to the private sector.

Which raises another issue, that again according to this chap, there are multi million pound contracts with private hospitals to keep spare capacity. Now that might sound sensible, but what it is doing is delaying even private operations in general medicine and lining the pockets of private health providers for at the moment little or no work.

[swaledale]

Agree on that

My understanding from someone who knows is that there arent enough trained staff to do this.

[swaledale]

Prior to going into teaching, I was a senior IT Manager. I had run quite a few recruitment drives. Advertised vacancies to replace staff who had left. Read thousands of application letters and their accompanying CVs. I invited the best candidates, on paper, for an interview. I then chose the best candidate(s) to fill the vacancy(ies). I didn't give a rat's ass if they were male, female, Caucasian, BAME or whatever. I was purely interested in a) their suitability to perform the job to the levels I and the company required and b) whether they fit into the team. To help with that, part of the interview was conducted with members of the team present and taking an active part.

As a result we ended up with a broad spread of characters, introvert, extrovert, thinkers, doers............ and a spread of gender, colour etc.

If I'd ended up with a department of black, lesbian, catholic invalids I would be happy in the knowledge that I had hired the best available candidate at the time of hiring. I know for a fact that my gaffer wanted me to hire the best available. That was my job and that was what I did. I am actually amazed that others don't do the same.

After retiring from teaching I did 2 days a week for 2 years working at a friend's IT recruitment company vetting application letters, CVs, doing first interviews and running the best candidates past the client before deciding who would be invited for interview. Again, I was only interested in how good they were for the job in hand. The final decision was the client's but I gave them the best of the applicants to choose from. That approach saw us (a small company of 5 people) take some clients off large national and multinational agencies. We had the personal touch and the clients were happy with what we sent them. To cut down on staff, the larger companies vetted CVs by passing the CVs through software looking for keywords. Their agents had no IT background and couldn't understand the CVs if they tried. We were all IT professionals and we knew if someone was trying to pull the wool over our eyes. One time I had a CV that looked perfect for the job. I then studied it and the applicant was claiming to have used some products but could show no evidence of where he had learned how to use/code it. I invited him for a "1st interview". For 20 minutes he had the idea it was going well and I was "buying" his very well rehearsed backstory. I then asked a few hard but fair questions regarding where he'd had, for instance, the training for CICS and a couple of technical questions. He was stymied. If I'd sent him to the client, I am 99% certain they would have hired him and that would have damaged our reputation.

Why hire 2nd or 3rd best just because they fit a certain demographic? Best for the job has always been my mantra.

It should be and having done years in assisting companies recruit, develop and retain staff it is supposed to be the aim, however easier said than done sometimes. There is a tendency for people to want to recruit employees who fit their own subconscious perception of what the ideal employee looks and behaves like. So if your interview panel or Board is composed of middle aged white males, that tends in most cases to be what they recruit as senior staff who then continue the process.