So erm.....

@ DA

The UK's response to the pandemic has been utterly shambolic. From both a public health perspective and a economic perspective its the worst of both worlds. As you say they UK may well be the worst preforming country in the world when it comes to handling the pandemic.

Boris Johnson's government has proven to be monumentally inept, they actually make the Trump administration seem like an oasis of calm at times.

"The less they laugh the more I laugh."

LMFAO, I couldn't agree more

"Boris Johnson's government has proven to be monumentally inept, they actually make the Trump administration seem like an oasis of calm at times."

LMAO, so true Stav….. Boris and his ministers have been a national and international embarrassment..

From not knowing the Covid-19 numbers at all, to not making clear cut rules, polices and decisions for the country.... to allowing their citizens to openly dictate how and when they will socialize....it is beyond a joke now

Now I see 16 000 recent cases were not even recorded because … wait for it..... nobody realized that the Excel spreadsheet could not handle any more data...…

Boris had no idea at all how to explain to the public on how the rule of 6 worked..... he completely fumbled over his own words trying to explain his own policy... it was hilarious

Hancock is a arrogant prick of note, who should resign immediately..... he previously demanded that people take pay cuts, but when he himself was asked to do the same, he just replied that he won't take a pay cut..... he will just work harder and longer..... what a twat

He has been single handedly the worst performing minister ….. except maybe for the Scottish national party's Margaret Ferrier ….. who travelled 400 miles AFTER being diagnosed as Covid positive.... on a TRAIN, openly and blatantly breaching their restrictions

These people still get to keep their jobs..... how?

Ah testing......lots about testing. So here we have numbers, always helpful:

Tests per million pop:

Netherlands....154000

France...179000

Italy...197000

Germany ....202000

Ireland ....253000

Spain...292000

Belgium 297000

US....342000

UK.....384000

Yep the Trump administration sure did a poor job testing! The stuff people believe always amazes me.

"He has been single handedly the worst performing minister ….. except maybe for the Scottish national party's Margaret Ferrier ….. who travelled 400 miles AFTER being diagnosed as Covid positive.... on a TRAIN, openly and blatantly breaching their restrictions"

Her actions where utterly appalling and stupid. Absolute idiot of a person to do that. If she had any sense of decency she should of resigned immediately.

But in fairness to the SNP they did everything right in their response to her actions. They immediately condemned her actions, withdraw the party whip and asked her to resign. But they can't remove her as an MP, no party can actually do that.

They only situation that rivals her actions was Dominic Cummings drive to Barnard Castle for an eye test. As a political adviser he's could of been sacked.

"Yep the Trump administration sure did a poor job testing! The stuff people believe always amazes me."

Those are the current numbers, go back to the first few months of the pandemic and compare them, That's when America lagged well behind most European states in terms of testing. Europe at least for a time got Covid under control and the number of cases went down, and as the number of cases went down so did the demand for testing allowing America to catch up and overtake them.

So whether it was Trumps fault or not, America was poor at testing at the start of the pandemic and that's why along with limited restrictions it completely lost control of the pandemic. Your ability to always twist the numbers in favor of the Trump administration always amazes me as well.

"They only situation that rivals her actions was Dominic Cummings drive to Barnard Castle for an eye test"

Yep, and with a little other unauthorized sight seeing as well...… and he acted like a real prick when caught out..... and Boris again backed his man to the hilt

Now we have the prime mini ster's own father who has been caught not wearing a mask... twice, just in the last few days.... going against his own son's national lockdown regulations, and all he keeps saying when he is caught is sorry..... it's a disgrace

Boris hiding in fridges to avoid the press..... not knowing his own policies, he is a joke of epic proportions....

How about when the elderly British folks were blatantly and deliberately sent back to their care homes by the government, who knew full well that they were Covid-19 positive, but refused to inform the care home management and staff of this..... therefore leading to thousands of more infections and deaths amongst the elderly, which was totally and completely avoidable....

In one case, the deaths in care homes increased nationally in the UK in just one week …. by 36%

Sickening..... just disgusting

Now... imagine the media frenzy if Trump had done this 

"The US has had the most deaths per capita, so they should be testing the most. "

Horse sh!t. Go look up the meaning of "per capita"....analyzing statistics isn't your thing. 

Star, there's some contradiction in what you're saying here...

"Those are the current numbers, go back to the first few months of the pandemic and compare them, That's when America lagged well behind most European states in terms of testing. Europe at least for a time got Covid under control and the number of cases went down, and as the number of cases went down so did the demand for testing allowing America to catch up and overtake them."

If Memory serves, Europe was affected a good while before the US was.

On one hand you are saying that America started testing late but on the other you are saying that when cases are low then testing decreases.

@ Plum

In terms of when the first confirmed cases where reported American reported its first confirmed Covid -19 cases 10 days before Italy did. Its also interesting to note that Italy implemented a travel ban to China one day before US implemented its travel restrictions to China and it was actually more restrictive the than the US travel restrictions, it was a full ban with no exceptions. Didn't help Italy much.

But its correct to say that Covid did hit Europe much harder at first than the US.

Yes as cases come down, there is less demand from the public for testing. There will be less contacts with confirmed cases, so the contact tracers will be advising less people to go and get tested and you may have excess testing capacity, but this is not the same as issues then what occurred at the beginning of the pandemic.

If America was doing the testing its doing now or even half that number at the start of the pandemic it would have far lower numbers of cases t oday. This is something I kept an eye during the first few months of the pandemic, America was lagging many European state in terms of testing and not just during the period where American had lower Covid numbers than Europe, it continued for some time after very significant numbers of cases had occurred in America. When I say lagging European states in testing, I'll also point some European states where not testing enough either, but America lagged some of them as well. America was almost given advanced warning of what was coming by being able to see what was happening in Europe but the didn't react properly.

White House concedes shortage of test kits 3rd March 2020

My guess is that they had to balance testing early and having stock to test later on once the virus spread...knowing that it was inevitably going to.

If there is no shortage of tests then it makes sense to test as many people as early as possible in the hope of tracking and isolating the virus early. No brainer, really. 

However, spunking all your tests kit too early, when tests kits are very limited, could see you miss the opportunity to track viral hotspots later on. Something that is likely to be quite important for a whole lot of reasons. Sample data and locking down the correct areas to limit negative economic effects are two that spring to mind. 

If kits are in short supply and all of your results are coming back as negative then it stands to reason that you've wasted them. And this is exactly what would happen if you mass test early on.

I like to believe that the above, and more, is/was taken into account at the time.

Viskop

You're trying to squeeze a political opinion into math that doest agree with you.

66 million people in the UK - 42k Covid deaths. 0.0636%

328 million people in the USA - 212k Covid deaths. 0.0646%

You really need to at least try to understand what per-capita means. 

No one can deny America is the market leader in Coronavirus.
 No one can say the UK has dealt with the virus effectively either- initially trying herd immunity

The number of deaths is a fact. 

"A negative test is never a wasted result. A negative test means a person doesn't have to isolate and doesn't have to take time off work etc."

It IS wasted against the backdrop of having a limited amount of tests available. 

Assuming you have 1 000 000 test kits in a population 338 million. And considering that early on, there are only a dozen or so cases, the chances are that you will not get any hits since only a tiny fraction of the population are infected and to find them you'd have to test almost everyone in the country. 

Once more of the population is infected, then you use your 1 000 000 tests, now you will likely get more hits and be able to slow down the spread since you know where the virus is concentrated and where it is likely to spread to.

Again, I'm jsut making the argument of testing the most efficiently when tests kits are limited.

1 million test kits... So Bum Plum, your argument has this basis, so the natural question from this is why the best economy in the world can only make 1 million test kits...

Trump was leading the world in ventilators, the king of ventilators. Surely they would be able to make more than 1 million ventilators.

The countries that have dealt with the Coronavirus the world is the US, and in second place is probably the UK.

"So the best economy in the world can only make 1 million test kits.."

Who said that?

"It" said that, Bum Plum...

Rugby Legend

6534 posts

"A negative test is never a wasted result. A negative test means a person doesn't have to isolate and doesn't have to take time off work etc."

It IS wasted against the backdrop of having a limited amount of tests available. 

Assuming you have 1 000 000 test kits in a population 338 million. 

Again, I'm jsut making the argument of testing the most efficiently when tests kits are limited.

Oh my word. 

I was using a random number to illustrate a statistical point, you complete simpleton.

Have you figured out what per-capita means yet?

Yeah, i didn't think so.

Rugby Legend

6535 posts

I was using a random number to illustrate a statistical point, you complete simpleton.

----    ----    ----    ----    ----    ----    ----    ----    ----    ----    ----    

So I will use a random number and say Trump had billions and billions of testing kits.
However, that is not reality. So what point does this prove?

 Just taking a random number from your arse is pointless... (The moral of the story). 

You based your ramblings on a data point that is not a reality, so your whole joke of an argument is nonsense. 

"A negative test is never a wasted result. A negative test means a person doesn't have to isolate and doesn't have to take time off work etc."

It IS wasted against the backdrop of having a limited amount of tests available.

Its not wasted, the whole point of the test is to know if your positive or negative. You would only be able to avoid negative tests if you already know if the person is infected or not and if you know that whats the point of testing? Their well always been more negative results than positive in a pandemic like this.

America never came out and said it was rationing Covid tests for later use at the start of the pandemic, they simply didn't have the testing capacity in the first place and where slow in ramping it up for several months.

Even if that was their intention as events have transpired it would of been the wrong course of action. They have massively ramped up testing in recent months, so even with rationing of limited supplies then, it would only make up a very small part of the current testing capacity. With this virus it simply doesn't make sense to weight as had an exponential growth rate. The longer you leave it, the worse it becomes.

Belgium, Brazil and  Spain have higher per capital Covid deaths than the US....the UK and Italy are scarcely better. But that’s only half the story.

In the US there are strong benefits to hospitals......I’m talking money.....to have a death be a Covid death. So we are finding people dying from car accidents who incidentally have Covid being classified as Covid deaths.

I have no doubt the US has the most inclusive definition of a Covid death which substantially overstated it’s numbers. And as I have said before this is a free country...a mobile country....not a disciplined country like Germany. It’s a sitting duck for Covid.

But we also have a trillion dollars which we wouldn’t have had if we followed Europe’s lockdowns.....that amount of money could give a million people each  a million dollars worth of healthcare......money far better spent than a marginal improvement in Covid rates.

They are not misreporting them....the US rules are very likely to lead to a Covid diagnosis. Many countries in the world are missing lots of Covid deaths.

And no I’m not  advocating second rate socialized healthcare, just pointing  out that a trillion dollars applied to heart disease or cancer will likely save many more lives than the very few lives lost that could realistically be attributed to creating the Trillion. 

I can see this notion never even occurred to you Anger...don’t be too hard on yourself though, Lefties are so laser focused on their talking points they often miss the big picture.

These are the CDC's most recent survival rates, by age group, for Covid;

0-19: 99.997% 

20-49: 99.98% 

50-69: 99.5% 

70+: 94.6%

I support Sweden’s approach of avoiding lockdowns. No doubt their medicine is reliable and efficient. Socialist medicine is more economic. But it isn’t responsive. 

People come down from Canada all the time because it takes so long to get elective surgery ...like a hip replacement. If you need an MRI in the USA it happens within minutes....Americans are used to that kind of service.

The US system is by far the most sophisticated  on the planet. But it’s not efficient because of  everybody is protecting against lawsuits....so every test is done, hospital stays are longer and it’s Rolls Royce care. Which is why so many rich foreigners come here for care.

But the two things that make health care in the US expensive you can lay at the feet of your Leftie pals, who constantly support the ludicrous law suit awards....mostly given by Leftie judges.

The other high cost item is prescriptions where the US patient pays for the foreign patients lower drug costs. Another issue Trump tried to remedy but got zero support from the Left.

Ignorance is bliss.

So Anger, your belief seems to be the European medical system has done better on Covid....a fact which is bleated by the Leftie press quoting deaths per pop, as you have done. But deaths per pop is a resultant of cases per pop, which is the result of social interactions.......and deaths per case, which might reflect on the medical system.

So my contention is the US is an open, mobile society which leads to many cases. The facts show that. My contention is also the US medical system is very competent, massively resourced and innovative, which should show up in deaths per case. So here they are:

Cases....deaths....deaths per case

US ......7831000......217000.....2.77%

.............

UK....562000.....43000.....7.65%

France......672000...33000.....4.91%

Spain....884000.....33000..3.73%

Italy.....339000....36000....10.6%

Netherlands....156000....6500.....4.2%

Belgium...138000...10100.....7.3%

Germany......315000....9600.....3.0%

Ireland ...40000.....1800.....4.5%

Of course the death rate is much lower because many cases are not reported. But the  US medical system outperforms every major European Union System....even vaunted Germany. 

I hope that helps further your education, which frankly has been totally screwed up in your leftie little island. The system has failed you and I’m happy to help where I can.

Not sure I anyone is aware but YouTube instantly eidt: de-monetise videos when a content creator mentions Covid.

"Keeping healthy, and having a good diet helps your body fight Covid."

is an example of a sentence which is completely unacceptable to YouTube.

Does that not ring alarm bells?

No medical expert, regardless of experience and motivation, is allowed to comment on or provide advice as regards Covid.

This despite the fact that the bodies which are allowed to comment being wrong at almost every turn.

Of course, it's completely fine to say to that crystal energy can heal cancer.

So much has happened with this virus and very little of it appears above board. 

Edited - this post as i did on my phone and damn there were many typos. Enjoy Rooi

The Swedish approach of avoiding a lockdown goes hand in hand, with various social security policies. I just find it odd the American right wing frequently hold up Sweden as the Covid response model as the gold standard model to be followed.

https://twitter.com/ChrChristensen/status/1309668851387334663

"The US system is by far the most sophisticated  on the planet. But it’s not efficient because of  everybody is protecting against lawsuits....so every test is done, hospital stays are longer and it’s Rolls Royce care. Which is why so many rich foreigners come here for care."

The American health care system could well be the most sophisticated on the planet, that may be so. But sophisticated doesn't mean the best or even particularly effective. WHO ranked the American health care system 37th in the world. The commonwealth fund recently conducted a study on health care performance between 11 comparable first world nations, the US came last.

So I'm sure the US health system is absolutely fantastic if your a rich American or rich foreigner. Its not so good for the average American though.

"But the two things that make health care in the US expensive you can lay at the feet of your Leftie pals, who constantly support the ludicrous lawsuit awards....mostly given by Leftie judges."

Ah yes blame the lefties. Or perhaps its something to do with America possibly being the only developed country in the world with no mechanism for price control. Or maybe its wasting money on unnecessary procedures. A report from 2013 should America spent 210 billion dollars on unnecessary medical procedures, something far more like to happen when physicians stand to profit from medical procedures.

"It's not wasted, the whole point of the test is to know if your positive or negative. You would only be able to avoid negative tests if you already know if the person is infected or not and if you know that what's the point of testing? Their well always been more negative results than positive in a pandemic like this."

This is false logic against a backdrop of too few tests or manpower to process tests being available.

It's true that there will always be more negative than positive test results but when you know you can't test everyone, or even a statistically significant portion of the population, then your priority is to test in such a way that you receive as much data as possible about where the virus has gotten a foothold. 

This then allows you to further focus your testing in order to limit the spread. Using up vital tests to randomly screen a tiny fraction of the population is statistically unlikely to give you much bang for your buck, if anything.

Holding off and testing symptomatic cases is the wisest choice because then you can trace contacts and do your best to quarantine as necessary. This from an article by Mark Mendelson, an infectious disease Prof at UCT;

"Geospatial mapping of the epidemic could assist in a more measured and informed approach for developing district or regional strategies to reduce the rate of community transmission. 

Focus testing resources on specific groups of people for whom a rapid turnaround time result will effect significant change."

Saying that no test is wasted because people anyway need to know if they're infected or not completely ignores the problem of shortages. Manage that shortage while gleaning the maximum amount of data possible is the priority. IE A "wait until you see the whites of their eyes" situation.

So no thanks for educating you? For giving you the numbers which none of the press have bothered to extract?  Well you are now educated, and you surely weren’t. You thought your European government medicine was doing the business.

And US medicine did it with one hand tied behind it’s back. Getting a new treatment approved here is very difficult because of the Left controlled courts and medical regulators. Still smarts prevail.

Now more education. These system rankers have an agenda.....they want the US to convert to national health. So cost and supposed accessibility are negative marks. But it’s theoretical accessibility.....people who are officially insured/ not insured.

But no sick person is turned away from any hospital.....an illegal immigrant in the US will get faster access to an MRI than the best insured person in most of Europe .

Who pays? Americans pay....you know, the selfish one percent. I have given over $40000 each year for the last 30, to local hospitals. All of that money goes to hospital care for people who can’t pay.

It’s not perfect, but it works and it’s the most sophisticated health care available anywhere.