So, who should be responsible for the shortages of testing equipment, testing procedures, PPE for front line staff, shortage of ventilators, not enough masks? (even the flimsy ones used by the public)
Please answer that one.
Within 2 weeks you will see images coming from many hospitals showing scenes you don't want to see. ***yes, we will. However, answer me this. Do you expect the UK, or any country for that matter, to be constantly prepared, at all time, for every eventuality? We are a peacetime nation operating on peacetime principles. Time after time, we as a nation, as well as every other nation on the planet, have found themselves and ourselves in such situations. I found this myself during foot and mouth, we found it in 2007, in 2001, the Falklands, world war two. And Spanish (Chinese) flu. One thing I guarantee is that this wasn't being ignored, by us or anyone else. You don't just magically conjure up thousands of ventilators, or testing kits. The public expects the government to prioritise what is important at the time, not 'what if'm scenarios' such as cannot be imagined. If you saw Sir Vallance being quizzed today on the select committee, you will have seen that we DID and DO have PPE stocks in abundance, for instance. We may not have the number of ventilators. But look at what happened during WW2. This country went to the capitalists, and at one point it was taking a matter of 2 months, yes 2 months, to have new warships built. James Holland's excellent volumes on WW2 will tell you that. It was an incredible effort and one which I believe is being replicated here right now. Sometimes in life we have to accept that things happen of the magnitude we cannot imagine, and we have to react to them. Today's announcement of new fiscal support demonstrates how we can react, and how the government will react.
The tragic thing is that this could have been prepared for, certainly with regards to testing equipment and PPE. ***see above
Unfortunately people like bashing China because they don't like the government, but this virus does not just attack Chinese, it attacks humans as the rest of the world are experiencing including UK. ***there is every reason to bash the Chinese for their appalling food standards and the lies and lack of cooperation with the west when the drama started. They refused help from WHO in January and you are telling me that we shouldn't bash them? I am not saying we should, because we have better things to do with our time. But be under no illusion the seriousness of which we find ourselves is not a British issue, it is a global one and a massive Chinese one. We should be in no doubt as to their culpability.
Where were the top medics in January, when this virus took hold of China to devastating affect? ***probably looking at the reports of what was happening in China and working out a response. As I have told you I was involved operationally in Foot and Mouth. You don't just 'magic up' a response on day one. You look at the evidence, the science, the data and work out a response based on this. I feel that the UK has done this and communicated this.
Lessons should have been learned.***yes, I agree. And we and the rest of the world are doing just that. But calling for the removal of the Matt Hancock, as you did, or bleating that airport screening should have been done (when scientifically the evidence suggests it was a useless idea) and so on and so on, as you have been doing - it is hysteria. We need time, and time has shown a growing pandemic, a huge response from our Government and that of Europe.
I know that you have a relative on the front line and that huge questions are being asked, but i could have done just the same during my time in the forces, where I too felt we weren't at times prepared or equipped, and many on this forum I am sure have had similar experiences of crises, business or otherwise. We just have to get on with it, stop bleating and understand that governmental responses takes days or weeks. At least in the UK we have medical officers who are blunt with the truth, A leader who appears on TV and can be asked questions, at the height of a crisis (unlike r Xi) .
Let';s be constructive rather than decrying and scaremongering.
They were not.
