Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

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And I hope you and everybody else on here has a job to go back to at the end of this. And I'm not being flippant there mate, I really do.

If this lock down goes on for very long many business's will fail and literally many millions will lose their jobs. The same the world over. In my opinion, many more people will be affected by this economically than will be affected by the loss of loved ones, certainly in this country. I have family members in the front line fighting this, and I have family who are ill and in the high risk category. I also have family and friends who are in real danger of having no job or losing their business, in which their whole life and worldly possessions are invested. Some will lose their homes.

I've said on here many times, everybody will be affected by this monstrous virus to some extent, some more than others. It's not for me to judge who is hit worse, only to be there to add support and comfort to those family and friends who need it.

The government has had to make many hard decisions dealing with this crisis, and for every decision made there are consequences. Have they made mistakes?, most certainly YES. Would anybody else have done better?. We'll truly never know the answer to that question. But there will inevitably be an independent enquiry into this once it is all over, and with the benefit of hindsight they will be able to identify the mistakes that have been made. If there had been and wrongdoing or gross misconduct in the advice/steps taken, then those responsible should, and hopefully will, be held to account.

You won’t see this because you’ve blocked me, but there will never be an independent inquiry into this.

There absolutely should, but it would mean putting most of this Government, and big chunks of the last few, in prison.
 
I’m a construction site manager so there’s not much I can do from home. I don’t even have a work laptop. To complicate matters further I’m also off ill and have been for the last 2 and a half weeks with intense tinnitus/ear issues so I’m going to speak with my HR department about sick pay. So far in London I’ve been unable to see a doctor and have just had telephone appointments. The doctor thinks it’s just a simple ‘plumbing issue’ but after 2 and a half weeks it hasn’t let up much at all and so if they put me on statutory sick pay then I’ll have to give up my rented accommodation and move back in with my parents, which is far from ideal at present.

I’m at the mercy of my companies sick pay policy which states ‘it’s at the discretion of the director’ which is vague to say the least. How they deal with that will dictate what happens next. I’ve been with them for 4 years so you’d hope they’ll help me out, but I’m not convinced they will.

I’m hoping they put me on furlough so it buys me some time with this illness.

Christ mate - that's awful. You're definitely not alone in that situation though, particularly in London.

Right now, the company won't lose much to put you on furlough so I hope they see some sense and do it.
 
my weekend plan is set

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This is from the Daily Mail like:

Revealed: UK firm is selling coronavirus testing kits to EIGHTY countries because labs here 'can't cope' - while NHS swabbing stations stand deserted in Britain


A British firm producing millions of pounds worth of coronavirus tests is selling most of them abroad because the UK doesn’t have enough laboratories to use them - as ministers were today accused of losing their grip on the crisis.

Novacyt has made £17.8million selling its testing equipment to more than 80 countries via its Southampton-based subsidiary Primerdesign. But only £1million worth has been sold to the UK, raising questions about why Britain is not buying more at a time when there are global shortages of tests.

It came as a huge NHS coronavirus swabbing site stood deserted yesterday despite the urgent need for more patients and medics to be examined. Pictures surfaced showing a testing site for NHS staff in Chessington, south-west London, as the UK's coronavirus death rate doubled - while one at Ikea in Wembley was also quiet.

Hospitals have today been ordered to use any spare lab space to test self-isolating NHS staff for coronavirus as a record-breaking 381 coronavirus deaths were announced in the UK, taking the total to 1,789 fatalities.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has intervened to end the embarrassing situation where thousands of tests have been unused and a vast NHS swabbing station also stood deserted yesterday.

Huge numbers of doctors, nurses and other crucial NHS staff are at home self-isolating but most have not been tested for coronavirus. The failure is causing growing anger because many could return to work if cleared of having the virus.

A source said the Mr Hancock had now scrapped a rule that 85 per cent of tests were reserved for patients, regardless of how many needed testing.
Housing and Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick today claimed the UK will be able to test up to 25,000 people per day by the middle of April.

It marks the darkest day so far for the NHS, which has seen patients dying by the dozen in hospitals in every corner of the country.

Boris Johnson is said to be taking control of ensuring chemicals vital to test kits arrive in the UK amid the criticism. Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove said at yesterday's Downing Street press conference: 'The prime minister and the health secretary are working with companies worldwide to ensure that we get the material we need to increase tests of all kinds.'

Scientists have accused health chiefs of snubbing their expertise, as experts at the Francis Crick Institute and Oxford University told the Daily Telegraph that Public Health England had left them 'sitting on their hands'. Oxford University has 119 machines that can be used to identify tell-tale genetic signs of the virus, but Government officials have only so far accepted one. The Francis Crick Institute has supplied five machines to the NHS, but has dozens more that aren't being utilised in the fight against the pandemic.

The Government is under attack for failing to ramp up its testing quickly enough – only 8,240 patients were screened over the past 24 hours.

Today the Mail reveals that a British firm is selling kits to 80 countries, including India. Novacyt said a shortage of NHS testing facilities had prevented further UK sales. Separately, a former World Health Organisation chief said the Government’s health protection agency had been ‘slow’ over testing and that 44 labs were underused.

No10 admitted its target of carrying out 25,000 tests a day might not be hit until May. As the NHS’s medical director said the number of new cases seemed to be stabilising:

A drive-thru test centre was established at Chessington World of Adventures and was seen up and operational from Friday to Monday.
Why aren't NHS staff going to these testing centres is the first question I would ask. Every NHS worker sitting at home, either because they have symptoms or a family member does, should be going to one of these centres in London to be tested. Every hospital/trust should have a list of staff who are self isolating. How hard is it to pick up the phone to them and say get your arse down to xxx and get tested. Presumably there are so many testers at each location and it takes so long to take each test. You can then have a central diary booking system that you can access so people turn up in an organised manner rather than all at once. Anybody who doesn't have access to a car, which is commonplace in London, should take a taxi. If 1 in 4 health workers are off sick as has been indicated, there must be thousands waiting to be tested.

There's been hundreds of thousands of volunteers to help out with the crisis. Use some of these people to carry out the task if the existing NHS clerical staff are already under the cosh.

I really think this can only be a communications and organisational glitch, because now they have the testing capacity and have set up the testing centres, the rest should be a 'kin formality.
 
Every NHS worker sitting at home, either because they have symptoms or a family member does, should be going to one of these centres in London to be tested. Every hospital/trust should have a list of staff who are self isolating. How hard is it to pick up the phone to them and say get your arse down to xxx and get tested

  • They don't have enough tests for all self isolating NHS workers
  • Each trust does have a list of such people
  • Critical care staff are being prioritised for tests
 
Funny how, outside of today's spike in confirmed cases, the # of tests graph looks an awful lot like the # of cases graph. Not a good thing, either. If you controlled the outbreak, you eventually test people that didn't get the disease with greater frequency.

The lag time on testing is also concerning. Patrick McEnroe thinks he's got the bug (and turns out to be right), but he has to go upstate to get tested and doesn't get results until ten or eleven days later?

So what you're telling me is take the known number of cases and multiply it by a factor of 8 (at least), because we're talking about week-and-a-half-old data on a function that's been doubling every three days. Great.
It is, bith for the reason you state and also healthcare workers have to treat that ”awaiting results “patient as if they were infected which uses up limited PPE on some patients that will end up being negative.
 
  • They don't have enough tests for all self isolating NHS workers
  • Each trust does have a list of such people
  • Critical care staff are being prioritised for tests
Did you read the post I responded to mate? it was saying that there have been 2 testing centres set up in London specifically for NHS staff, and that neither are being used, or are sparingly used. There's also capacity for 11,000 tests a day but only 8,000 are being tested. That is presumably because the other 3,000 are reserved for NHS staff, but very few are turning up to the testing centres.
 
Did you read the post I responded to mate? it was saying that there have been 2 testing centres set up in London specifically for NHS staff, and that neither are being used, or are sparingly used. There's also capacity for 11,000 tests a day but only 8,000 are being tested. That is presumably because the other 3,000 are reserved for NHS staff, but very few are turning up to the testing centres.

Probably cos they are working, sleeping or at home with The Rona.
 
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