The Covid Inquiry

[mick]

My guilty pleasure is to watch the proceedings of the above when I have time. I get mesmerized like watching a snake!!

Usually the questioning is fairly gentle, but it's interesting to watch really clever people questioning and being questioned.

Yesterday was different. The person being questioned was Professor Sir Chris Whitty (Govt chief medical officer). The barrister doing the questioning was, in my mind, having a real go at him, effectively suggesting that he wasn't doing his job because he didn't ring alarm bells loudly enough and soon enough.

The phrase "lethal politeness", springs to mind.

Anyone watch? Anyone agree?

Mick

[spinno]

Here's a paraphrase I made up that I think sums the whole mess up
"There's an outbreak of something nasty in Asia, let's ask the scientists what it means. What do you mean we have to stop people coming into the country from that direction? So how quickly will it spread and how fatal is it? What do you mean we have to lockdown, can't we have herd immunity (looks smug at this comment, it sounds clever)and in a month we'll be back to normal. Oh it's too late, quick chuck some cash at the problem, our mates know someone somewhere who can help. Oh it really is too late...sh1t"

[MJB]

*Inquiry

[mick]

Thanks - shouldn't have made that mistake!

Mick

[Chester PB]

I suspect that 'post mortem' would be a better title for the process. Not just for the victims resulting from predictable but disappointing lack of any scientific knowledge or comprehension by our elected politicians, but also (hopefully) for the careers of these politicians. From what I've read on the BBC News and Guardian websites, the scientists with any relevant knowledge and advice were often ignored. I recall a thread on the old AP Forum started by younger member who was enthusiastically participating in the 'eat out to help out' campaign by visiting his favourite pizza emporium for a meal (when Covid inoculations were not yet available), and that some older and more wary members advised against it. With hindsight, being suspicious of 'eat out to help out' (and possibly anything similar that Boris and his team encouraged us to do), was a sensible survival tactic and lifestyle choice.

[gray1720]

Agreed, Chester. Behind the scientific scenes, a lot of work was going on, on coronaviruses in particular, (a) because we hadn't had a major pandemic in a while and (b) because two new and nasty coronavirus had already emerged this century, so there was a good chance that the next biggie would be one. Had Covid-19 been as nasty or as infectious as SARS or MERS we could have had another 1918 on our hands. Nowadays you can sequence a virus genome on the time it takes to have a cuppa, and send that info round the world in the time it takes to wash the cup. That's how we had vaccines in trial within weeks.

Meanwhile, the place was being run by people who wouldn't know what a science was if it bit them on the arse but kept telling us they were following it.

If you want a real government shambles, look up the story of the Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre, which was flogged off to a US asset stripper before the building was even finished. Cunch of bunts.

[JohnY]

We did once have a PM who was a graduate scientist. I think many here would find reason to find fault with her.

Let's just imagine what would have happened if Comrade Corbin had been PM instead of Bozo. He would have done things differently but I doubt that they would be better.

Scientific ignorance exists within all the parliamentary  parties.

[mick]

I look at things a little differently. There was no need to be a scientist to understand the vital point that was being made. In a few words it was: the disease will spread exponentially and will double every few days, what that means is the number of people getting sick will grow very rapidly indeed and will grow so fast that there will be no time to do anything useful about it and the NHS will be overwhelmed.

A scientific background isn't needed to get that message - but a modicum of intelligence is. Therefore, IMHO, the criticism wasn't that BoJo wasn't a scientist, it was that he was thick.

Mick

[Chester PB]

Nov 24, 2023 13:53:37 GMT JohnY said:

We did once have a PM who was a graduate scientist. I think many here would find reason to find fault with her.

Let's just imagine what would have happened if Comrade Corbin had been PM instead of Bozo. He would have done things differently but I doubt that they would be better.

Scientific ignorance exists within all the parliamentary  parties.

Margaret Thatcher studied chemistry, but soon gave it up to be a barrister. However, she must have remembered some of it because she didn't waste much time in supporting the publicity campaign about AIDS and the spread of infection, even though I've read that she personally found the subject 'distasteful'. Perhaps we were fortunate that AIDS was not an airborne infection, but required more intimate transmission of bodily fluids. Or, to be very cynical, if Covid was transmitted that way Boris might have acted much sooner...

[daves]

As I said in another thread, she understood chemistry enough to be able to understand the ozone depletion over Antarctica and kick start the Montreal Agreement. I think she also made some of the first climate change alerts.

[Ivor E Tower]

I've not watched any of it but read some of the daily summaries. Seems to me it has told us what we knew all along, that running a country is far too important to be left to politicians. They are a lying, conniying, ignorant bunch of self-opinionated peopleo nly interestedi n furthering their own interests and have no idea what goes on in the real world.

We are an island and it was obvious to me and a few others I have spoken to that with the virus running rampant in China just before the start of Chinese New Year, we should have stopped people heading to China to celebrate and then not admitted anyone into the UK who had been there to celebrate. Lockdown has caused immense damage to so many people - mentally, physically and financially. Successive UK governments failed to plan for a pandemic and the bunch of idiots who were in charge in early 2020 had no idea what to do, even asking the supposed "experts"

[davem399]

Nov 24, 2023 16:15:02 GMT mick said:

.....it was that he was thick.

I reckon he still is.

[willien]

Nov 24, 2023 18:24:33 GMT Ivor E Tower said:

I've not watched any of it but read some of the daily summaries. Seems to me it has told us what we knew all along, that running a country is far too important to be left to politicians. They are a lying, conniying, ignorant bunch of self-opinionated peopleo nly interestedi n furthering their own interests and have no idea what goes on in the real world.

We are an island and it was obvious to me and a few others I have spoken to that with the virus running rampant in China just before the start of Chinese New Year, we should have stopped people heading to China to celebrate and then not admitted anyone into the UK who had been there to celebrate. Lockdown has caused immense damage to so many people - mentally, physically and financially. Successive UK governments failed to plan for a pandemic and the bunch of idiots who were in charge in early 2020 had no idea what to do, even asking the supposed "experts"

Edinburgh University has a very large number of chinese students, I assume Heriot Watt and Napier (other Uni's in or near Edinburgh with large Electronic engineering faculties) are similar.  It should have been a case of sorry but you either stay here or you do not come back until some point in the future that we are unable to speculate at this time.

[MJB]

I thought the first confirmed cases of UK transmission were from people who went skiing in Italy?

[willien]

Nov 24, 2023 18:50:27 GMT MJB said:

I thought the first confirmed cases of UK transmission were from people who went skiing in Italy?

Quite possibly.  North East Italy was IIRC the first place in Europe to have an Oh shit realisation.