Coronavirus - the killer flu that will wipe us out? (Vol. 7)

[anonymous-user]

21st Century Man said:

Welshbeef said:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/07/08/ca...

So £15 billion people are not happy we’ve spent so much for NHS PPE?
On the one hand the media and the whole public - per yougov - wanted PPE to the NHS and the gift did poorly in getting enough PPE to the NHS. Yet they are unhappy with the huge PPE cost.

So what does this mean? People and media want PPE in unlimited supply for free or they didn’t really they were just trying to bash govt at the time and now are doing the same.

Shameful and these people and media need to be called out on it.

Agreed, the hysteria of the media at the time was palpable and now this hypocrisy, it's just incredible.

I don't believe criticising the lack of PPE or the value in the PPE when it is sourced are mutually exclusive positions.

For example, when you have £250m PPE contracts awarded to small offshore financial institutions with no apparent connection to PPE manufacture or supply, with no explanation offered from either side, you're entitled to draw adverse inferences.

https://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/labour-...

[MOTORVATOR]

RonaldMcDonaldAteMyCat said:

don't believe criticising the lack of PPE or the value in the PPE when it is sourced are mutually exclusive positions.

For example, when you have £250m PPE contracts awarded to small offshore financial institutions with no apparent connection to PPE manufacture or supply, with no explanation offered from either side, you're entitled to draw adverse inferences.

https://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/labour-...

What exactly is the criticism of this contract?

Are we saying they have billed for something they did not supply or just that we don't like their name?

[edh]

MOTORVATOR said:

RonaldMcDonaldAteMyCat said:

don't believe criticising the lack of PPE or the value in the PPE when it is sourced are mutually exclusive positions.

For example, when you have £250m PPE contracts awarded to small offshore financial institutions with no apparent connection to PPE manufacture or supply, with no explanation offered from either side, you're entitled to draw adverse inferences.

https://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/labour-...

What exactly is the criticism of this contract?

Are we saying they have billed for something they did not supply or just that we don't like their name?

There is no detail to make that judgement yet... Although it's a bit unusual for a massive single tender contract award to go to a firm that on the face of it, has no connection to PPE supply.

We'll probably have to wait for Private Eye to unpick it all

[MOTORVATOR]

edh said:

MOTORVATOR said:

RonaldMcDonaldAteMyCat said:

don't believe criticising the lack of PPE or the value in the PPE when it is sourced are mutually exclusive positions.

For example, when you have £250m PPE contracts awarded to small offshore financial institutions with no apparent connection to PPE manufacture or supply, with no explanation offered from either side, you're entitled to draw adverse inferences.

https://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/labour-...

What exactly is the criticism of this contract?

Are we saying they have billed for something they did not supply or just that we don't like their name?

There is no detail to make that judgement yet... Although it's a bit unusual for a massive single tender contract award to go to a firm that on the face of it, has no connection to PPE supply.

We'll probably have to wait for Private Eye to unpick it all

Not sure it is massive in the scheme of £15bn of PPE over such a short time frame and formal tender contracts is not how the procurement was happening at a guess as there was no time for that.

Just seems odd to pick out a single company that may well have been the one that plugged the gap.

[edh]

MOTORVATOR said:

edh said:

MOTORVATOR said:

RonaldMcDonaldAteMyCat said:

don't believe criticising the lack of PPE or the value in the PPE when it is sourced are mutually exclusive positions.

For example, when you have £250m PPE contracts awarded to small offshore financial institutions with no apparent connection to PPE manufacture or supply, with no explanation offered from either side, you're entitled to draw adverse inferences.

https://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/labour-...

What exactly is the criticism of this contract?

Are we saying they have billed for something they did not supply or just that we don't like their name?

There is no detail to make that judgement yet... Although it's a bit unusual for a massive single tender contract award to go to a firm that on the face of it, has no connection to PPE supply.

We'll probably have to wait for Private Eye to unpick it all

Not sure it is massive in the scheme of £15bn of PPE over such a short time frame and formal tender contracts is not how the procurement was happening at a guess as there was no time for that.

Just seems odd to pick out a single company that may well have been the one that plugged the gap.

You're right - let's look at them all. there are plentry of other odd looking contracts being revealed.

"not massive" - £250m!

Richard Murphy suggests £15bn for PPE is hardly believable.
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2020/07/09/15-...

A select few have been making huge amounts of money from this govt during the covid epidemic. Normal procurement rules have been set aside.

[MOTORVATOR]

edh said:

MOTORVATOR said:

edh said:

MOTORVATOR said:

RonaldMcDonaldAteMyCat said:

don't believe criticising the lack of PPE or the value in the PPE when it is sourced are mutually exclusive positions.

For example, when you have £250m PPE contracts awarded to small offshore financial institutions with no apparent connection to PPE manufacture or supply, with no explanation offered from either side, you're entitled to draw adverse inferences.

https://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/labour-...

What exactly is the criticism of this contract?

Are we saying they have billed for something they did not supply or just that we don't like their name?

There is no detail to make that judgement yet... Although it's a bit unusual for a massive single tender contract award to go to a firm that on the face of it, has no connection to PPE supply.

We'll probably have to wait for Private Eye to unpick it all

Not sure it is massive in the scheme of £15bn of PPE over such a short time frame and formal tender contracts is not how the procurement was happening at a guess as there was no time for that.

Just seems odd to pick out a single company that may well have been the one that plugged the gap.

You're right - let's look at them all. there are plentry of other odd looking contracts being revealed.

"not massive" - £250m!

Richard Murphy suggests £15bn for PPE is hardly believable.
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2020/07/09/15-...

A select few have been making huge amounts of money from this govt during the covid epidemic. Normal procurement rules have been set aside.

So many questions in my head.

Has £15b actually been spent or simply budgeted and possibly committed to? If they do not need it all are there fall back clauses? Do you know that £252m has actually been transferred to this company? Do you know it is bad value or have you just assumed it must be because the press highlighted a number?

Why were normal procurement rules set aside and can we sue Piers Morgan?

Do we now own a stockpile of 14bn of PPE that will go out of date in three years and cant possibly be worn? If we haven't have the health service seriously used that quantity and were they dressing up admin staff and dancing nurses just to get rid of it?

Do you reckon Hancock took the bung or was it Sedwill and that's why they've binned him?

[J4CKO]

Over a day with no posts, I am off for a pint at the local based on this barometer of Covid !

[Alucidnation]

J4CKO said:

Over a day with no posts, I am off for a pint at the local based on this barometer of Covid !

Don't forget your mask!




To be honest, most people have moved onto the other very similar threads.

[anonymous-user]

Why so few brits wearing masks? Is it just government advice?





https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1281638035462004...

[isaldiri]

El stovey said:

Why so few brits wearing masks? Is it just government advice?

Thank goodness for the scandis maintaining a sense of reason and not falling over to sprout off on the 'you'll die without a mask' mantra that has taken over in most other places....

[smashing]

isaldiri said:

Thank goodness for the scandis maintaining a sense of reason and not falling over to sprout off on the 'you'll die without a mask' mantra that has taken over in most other places....

Gotta keep that fear training running!

[bitchstewie]

El stovey said:

Why so few brits wearing masks? Is it just government advice?





https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1281638035462004...

I think it's a mix of cultural and some kind of weird hang up that wearing means you've given in to authority or something.

You see it on here a lot where it's literally as if wearing a mask means the Government have "won" and own you or something.

[philv]

It's so obvious masks help prevent. The spread and therefore reduce deaths.
What is it that so offends people that they should wear masks?

[anonymous-user]

philv said:

It's so obvious masks help prevent. The spread and therefore reduce deaths.
What is it that so offends people that they should wear masks?

Do you wear one every time you step out the house?

[turbobloke]

Radio news just mentioned that the gov't is considering stricter rules on face coverings alongside an item suggesting Blackburn, Liverpool and Carlisle are following Leicester.

[pquinn]

philv said:

It's so obvious masks help prevent. The spread and therefore reduce deaths.
What is it that so offends people that they should wear masks?

Maybe because 'logic'. Rates are falling anyway? Almost no-one was wearing masks at the peak, so why now? If masks are such a great thing why not try for decent ones instead of any random bit of crap, especially as science repeatedly told us about the lack of efficacy and the potential problems (including the 'safety' making people careless)?

The ever increasing obsession with masks as they become ever less necessary is just odd, like people need a comfort blanket of rules as others are rolled back.

[grumbledoak]

philv said:

It's so obvious masks help prevent. The spread and therefore reduce deaths.
What is it that so offends people that they should wear masks?

No. It isn't obvious.

Surgical masks, in appropriate circumstances, changed regularly by people trained to use them? Yes, they probably do. We're not supposed to have them.

Random bits of cloth kept on all day by untrained, panicking members of the public? Show me the proof. And a proper (hell, any) analysis of the downsides of wearing a piece of random cloth over your mouth and nose day after day - oxygen reduction, exhaust build up, moisture, pathogen growth. They must be a little petri dish after a few hours.

Plus the fact that you would struggle to find someone with COVID-19 at random on the High St to catch it from. This has always been a disease of confined spaces and occupants.

[anonymous-user]

bhstewie said:

El stovey said:

Why so few brits wearing masks? Is it just government advice?





https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1281638035462004...

I think it's a mix of cultural and some kind of weird hang up that wearing means you've given in to authority or something.

You see it on here a lot where it's literally as if wearing a mask means the Government have "won" and own you or something.

Actually, looking at the graphs that I posted, loads more brits are wearing masks as we go along.

I think it’s a bit to do with what’s normal behaviour, if every time you went outside everyone was wearing one most people wouldn’t think twice about it but if it’s not that common then people won’t bother either.

[anonymous-user]

Boris has to take some of the blame.

His Brexit speech from Feb... he would have loved UK to be mask and spectacle free.

....when there is a risk that new diseases such as coronavirus will trigger a panic and a desire for market segregation that go beyond what is medically rational to the point of doing real and unnecessary economic damage, then at that moment humanity needs some government somewhere that is willing at least to make the case powerfully for freedom of exchange, some country ready to take off its Clark Kent spectacles and leap into the phone booth and emerge with its cloak flowing as the supercharged champion, of the right of the populations of the earth to buy and sell freely among each other.

And here in Greenwich in the first week of February 2020, I can tell you in all humility that the UK is ready for that role.

[vaud]

grumbledoak said:

Random bits of cloth kept on all day by untrained, panicking members of the public? Show me the proof. And a proper (hell, any) analysis of the downsides of wearing a piece of random cloth over your mouth and nose day after day - oxygen reduction, exhaust build up, moisture, pathogen growth. They must be a little petri dish after a few hours.

Oxygen reduction is a myth for face coverings.