Coronavirus - is enough being done to contain it?

(19-04-2020 09:59 )southsidestu Wrote:  A Sunday Times investigation headline today: Coronavirus: 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

It alleges that "Boris Johnson skipped five Cobra meetings on the virus, calls to order protective gear were ignored and scientists’ warnings fell on deaf ears. Failings in February may have cost thousands of lives"

No doubt if allegations are true, an inquiry will be held and the results withheld from the public. Will take a few lies to hush up the incompetence of this eton government

(19-04-2020 10:18 )SOCATOA Wrote:  No doubt if allegations are true, an inquiry will be held and the results withheld from the public. Will take a few lies to hush up the incompetence of this eton government

I read an article this morning (forget where from), where someone, I think some government lacky, was making the point that an inquiry would be in order after this thing is over, to address the failings and shortcomings of the response.
All well and good, except he was saying that Boris needed to head this inquiry ... yeah, right, that'll work then won't it.

You seriously couldn't make this stuff up.

(17-04-2020 07:14 )Charlemagne Wrote:  ^ I mentioned the same story on a different thread, as it is not related to the virus. Lets get things straight. These are experience fruit pickers, your demeaning comment is unjust. A lot of them are uneasy to come to us.

After watching a report a lot of British workers have been found, and the workers will also be used as trainers.

As for my comment. It's pretty demeaning when thousands of UK citizens applied for these jobs and were not accepted.

The total number of Coronavirus deaths has exceeded 160K with the total number of UK deaths now in excess of 15K

Meaning that the UK accounts for just under 10% of the Coronavirus deaths whilst accounting for less than 1% of the global population

Now there are some caveats to this, The UK has one of the most advanced economies therefore migration both in an out of the country will be greater than in most others making us more susceptible to the virus. However this is also true of Germany & Japan who have larger populations and considerably less deaths

UK - 67m - 15,464 deaths

Japan - 126m - 226 deaths

Germany - 83m - 4,538 deaths

The Japan figure is striking more than double the population but 1.4% of the deaths

The lady running Oxford Universities programme to produce a corona virus vaccine was on TV this morning.
She said that they are at a stage where they are to test the vaccine on hundreds of volunteers at the end of this week. And they are confident in getting the vaccine fit for use in the Autumn.

But they now need government help to 'Ramp' up production. The univerity can produce the vaccine in thousands, but we need to inprove that to millions. And decisions need to be made by the government as to who gets the vaccine first and who owns the rights to the vaccine.

The US and China are already running trails of their vaccine. But we need our own as the US product will be expensive and China's may not even work.

(19-04-2020 14:16 )Charlemagne Wrote:  And decisions need to be made by the government as to who gets the vaccine first and who owns the rights to the vaccine.

The US and China are already running trails of their vaccine. But we need our own as the US product will be expensive and China's may not even work.

Is there any way of making the NHS the owner of the rights of the vaccine ? That way any money made from it could go directly into the NHS.

(19-04-2020 14:54 )Stemmw Wrote:  

(19-04-2020 14:16 )Charlemagne Wrote:  And decisions need to be made by the government as to who gets the vaccine first and who owns the rights to the vaccine.

The US and China are already running trails of their vaccine. But we need our own as the US product will be expensive and China's may not even work.

Is there any way of making the NHS the owner of the rights of the vaccine ? That way any money made from it could go directly into the NHS.

No because it will cost billions to test and develop but partnering with GSK and other uk based companies will mean we will get access to it

(19-04-2020 14:54 )Stemmw Wrote:  

(19-04-2020 14:16 )Charlemagne Wrote:  And decisions need to be made by the government as to who gets the vaccine first and who owns the rights to the vaccine.

The US and China are already running trails of their vaccine. But we need our own as the US product will be expensive and China's may not even work.

Is there any way of making the NHS the owner of the rights of the vaccine ? That way any money made from it could go directly into the NHS.

Jonas Salik didn't patent the Polio vaccine. His belief was that it belonged to the people.

If Oxford Uni have a working vaccine then their research costs should be refunded by the Government and a decent size grant thrown their way, but nobody should profit from this.