stu675:
@Franglais I would be really grateful if you could spare me an hour to listen to this and give me your critique?
They are 2 Telegraph journalists that have been doing this since it started so hopefully they are worth listening to.
They have a source in the NHS they call “George” and a GP they call “Clare” so they know what they’re talking about.
You could start from the beginning, or maybe from 28 mins in for an interview with a cancer specialist ( before going back to the beginning)
Thank you
podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cH … IcFk?ep=14
Well, I found the style of the piece rather jarring, but that`s mostly irrelevant. “Should” be irrelevant anyway. Bit like poiticians being the “mate down the pub”? Gain trust and credence through being chatty rather than actually showing or proving anything.
Some early statements were made with no consideration given to the origins or truth of those statements.
The questions were fully loaded with rising tones and trigger words etc.
They criticise the political handling of the situation? Cant disagree much there. Some of the measures taken have been (in my non expert opinion) about correct. Some too strict, some too weak, but all decided by a politician looking at polls and back-benchers, not a leader looking to the country. Does the No.10 parties fiasco discredit the Gov advice? Probably it does. But for myself I try to listen to the science, not a lying, cheating, classics scholars interpretation of what the science means.
If Johnson says “it is raining”, I don`t believe him, nor disbelieve him. I look out the window.
No.10 parties are a disgrace, but are irrelevant in how I view the pandemic, and the science. They are not relevant in a C19 piece.
The half way point where the two presenters spoke to Prof Gordon Wishart was interesting.
Nothing much in what he said I found to disagree with.
The NHS has been underfunded for many years. It has been operating at or very near capacity for too long. The mantra of “more efficiency” means a highly stressed system that has no spare capacity for “unforeseen” events.
And lets remember global pandemics have been gamed for years. Like earthquakes, we know they will happen, even if we cant accurately predict when.
Because of the lockdown we have had less diagnosis of cancer etc. Looks perfectly true from the surveys done.
Only later will we see whether or not the choices made were “correct” or not. Only later will we be able to tally up the different outcomes of different paths taken.
From what I`ve seen so far, the hospitals were working at full capacity during the lockdowns. If there were more cases of C19, then there would have been even fewer beds available for cancer and other patients.
Keeping infection numbers low benefits everyone including cancer patients.
Wishart says there should have been more effort on protecting cancer and other patients. I agree.
This year there has been time to see what was
At 39min, Wishart was asked whether the “NHS over-reacted”?
He said they had little choice.
At 42min, he is asked whether the number of deaths due to lockdown, may be more than actual C19 deaths?
He says the numbers aren`t clear, but they could be close. Only analysis later will tell.
(No where, at no time, does he say lockdowns were a mistake or wrong, by the way)
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Time for a bit of joined-up thinking?
Scene 1, What happened:
Lockdowns and 145,000 C19 deaths.
(That is ONS figures where C19 is the primary cause of death, not as a secondary infection, OK?)
Maybe another 145,000 deaths caused by lockdown over the coming years??
(Speculative and if those deaths are later they don`t represent such a loss of years lost as the immediate C19 deaths)
Scene 2, If no lockdowns:
What would the spread of the disease been?
Very speculative, but, early on the Barrington Group were suggesting that we needed at least 80% or more infected for herd immunity weren`t they? From 11million infections we have had 145k deaths. So from 50-odd-million we would have had 700,000dead.
And there would have been many cancer sufferers and others in that figure. They are of course in vulnerable groups, very at risk from any virus.
Clearly the lockdowns were life savers.
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