The Lemon Fool

Kate Bingham to made a dame for her work as head of the vaccine task force :
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20 ... -damehood/

Makes you/one proud a little to a lot

Excellent news.

Couldn't happen to a more deserving person. Well spotted.

BBC programme "Profile" on Kate Bingham, well worth a listen.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000wjff

Compared to Baroness Dido-In-Disaster-Out.

I believe Ms Bingham was already a highly successful person before any of this. And I suppose random chance says that from time to time someone connected to government is also actually competent - and she's the one.

UncleEbenezer wrote:Compared to Baroness Dido-In-Disaster-Out.

I believe Ms Bingham was already a highly successful person before any of this. And I suppose random chance says that from time to time someone connected to government is also actually competent - and she's the one.

Yes my view is the same. Thank God Lady Luck gave the job to her not to our useless dollop of a vaccine minister, Mr Zahawi.

Why are pretty much all members of the cabinet useless idiots?

This is one government decision I have absolutely no doubts about. A 100% appropriate decision.

- Julian

CliffEdge wrote:Why are pretty much all members of the cabinet useless idiots?

Partly because successive govts have not had the courage to ensure that MPs' salaries are attractive to people of the right calibre.
Virtue-signalling pay cuts and passes eventually have an effect.

Not in her case though.

V8

The daughter of Baron Bingham of Cornhill
Privately educated.
Oxford graduate.
Married to a Tory MP.

Plenty there for Labour to criticize if she'd got it all wrong. I wonder if they'll mention it for such a success story?

gryffron wrote:The daughter of Baron Bingham of Cornhill
Privately educated.
Oxford graduate.
Married to a Tory MP.

Plenty there for Labour to criticize if she'd got it all wrong. I wonder if they'll mention it for such a success story?

So what. She has done a good job. The rest is irrelevant

88V8 wrote:

CliffEdge wrote:Why are pretty much all members of the cabinet useless idiots?

Partly because successive govts have not had the courage to ensure that MPs' salaries are attractive to people of the right calibre.
Virtue-signalling pay cuts and passes eventually have an effect.

Not in her case though.

V8

No, I think the problem Kate Bingham had to solve was singular and straightforward, scientific and logistical. She had the best of advice, and chose wisely.

But her problem was not politics. In politics there are competing interests which must be balanced. Economic vs medical, human behaviour vs expectations, national and international. With a mainly pig headed Civil Service for back-up. All in the face of a hostile press and Opposition. The ministers are probably not so stupid as they seem, just pulled in too many different directions.

gryffron wrote:The daughter of Baron Bingham of Cornhill
Privately educated.
Oxford graduate.
Married to a Tory MP.

Plenty there for Labour to criticize if she'd got it all wrong. I wonder if they'll mention it for such a success story?

Nope, the pattern is clear and was repeated in this morning's political chat shows.

Credit for success of the vaccine rollout goes to the NHS, not the govt who "should stop giving themselves a pat on the back for it".
Failure of test & trace is the govt's fault for handing it to their chums in private companies.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m ... n-06062021 start around 10:30

mc2fool wrote:

gryffron wrote:The daughter of Baron Bingham of Cornhill
Privately educated.
Oxford graduate.
Married to a Tory MP.

Plenty there for Labour to criticize if she'd got it all wrong. I wonder if they'll mention it for such a success story?

Nope, the pattern is clear and was repeated in this morning's political chat shows.

Credit for success of the vaccine rollout goes to the NHS, not the govt who "should stop giving themselves a pat on the back for it".
Failure of test & trace is the govt's fault for handing it to their chums in private companies.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m ... n-06062021 start around 10:30

Given that the countries with the most draconian test and trace procedures, such as Taiwan and Korea, are now seeing rising case numbers, has any country got a successful test and trace record?
In the UK test and trace was not draconian. AIUI only 20% of infected people were compliant in isolating themselves,while tracing was half hearted, because we are not a police state. People's movements were not fully tracked through credit cards, phone records etc.

Nimrod103 wrote:
Given that the countries with the most draconian test and trace procedures, such as Taiwan and Korea, are now seeing rising case numbers, has any country got a successful test and trace record?

At the current time using 7-day rolling average from https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
Per capita new infection rate
S. Korea 11.63 (and steady)
Taiwan 18.89 (and falling)
UK 59.64 (and rising)

Per capita death rate:
S. Korea 0.06
Taiwan 0.65
UK 0.12


The only one of these that even hints these countries have done poorly is Taiwan's death rate, but that would have continue for another eight years to get to the current UK death total. So yes Taiwan and S. Korea have done well. And there appears to be a lot of sour grapes over the ****show that was and probably will be the UK response.

9873210 wrote:

Nimrod103 wrote:
Given that the countries with the most draconian test and trace procedures, such as Taiwan and Korea, are now seeing rising case numbers, has any country got a successful test and trace record?

At the current time using 7-day rolling average from https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
Per capita new infection rate
S. Korea 11.63 (and steady)
Taiwan 18.89 (and falling)
UK 59.64 (and rising)

Per capita death rate:
S. Korea 0.06
Taiwan 0.65
UK 0.12


The only one of these that even hints these countries have done poorly is Taiwan's death rate, but that would have continue for another eight years to get to the current UK death total. So yes Taiwan and S. Korea have done well. And there appears to be a lot of sour grapes over the ****show that was and probably will be the UK response.

From today's Guardian:
After living largely Covid-free, Taiwan is experiencing its worst outbreak of the pandemic, with about 11,000 total cases and more than 260 deaths – more than 90% of them since mid-April. In a statement Taiwan’s cabinet said the outbreak “has not yet stabilised”, and they would release more details of the extension later today.
So much for current test and trace effectiveness. Japan and the USA are rushing vaccines to Taiwan because AIUI the CCP is trying to prevent vaccines from coutries more under CCP influence from reaching Taiwan.

Nimrod103 wrote:

9873210 wrote: At the current time using 7-day rolling average from https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
Per capita new infection rate
S. Korea 11.63 (and steady)
Taiwan 18.89 (and falling)
UK 59.64 (and rising)

Per capita death rate:
S. Korea 0.06
Taiwan 0.65
UK 0.12

The only one of these that even hints these countries have done poorly is Taiwan's death rate, but that would have continue for another eight years to get to the current UK death total. So yes Taiwan and S. Korea have done well. And there appears to be a lot of sour grapes over the ****show that was and probably will be the UK response.

From today's Guardian:
After living largely Covid-free, Taiwan is experiencing its worst outbreak of the pandemic, with about 11,000 total cases and more than 260 deaths – more than 90% of them since mid-April. In a statement Taiwan’s cabinet said the outbreak “has not yet stabilised”, and they would release more details of the extension later today.
So much for current test and trace effectiveness. Japan and the USA are rushing vaccines to Taiwan because AIUI the CCP is trying to prevent vaccines from much-vaunted countries more under CCP influence from reaching Taiwan.

Yes, the much-vaunted "Taiwan Solution" turned out to be more like the "Taiwan Great Deferral".

The US never even attempted the "Trace" part of Test & Trace, and has outcomes no worse than the UK which did attempt it, albeit in a half-assed way. I always said it would never work, although I did just install the NHS Covid app, since places keep asking for it.

If the UK per capita death rate is only 12 in 1,000 then what is the big deal? I thought it would be at least twice that.

Nimrod103 wrote: From today's Guardian:
After living largely Covid-free, Taiwan is experiencing its worst outbreak of the pandemic, with about 11,000 total cases and more than 260 deaths – more than 90% of them since mid-April. In a statement Taiwan’s cabinet said the outbreak “has not yet stabilised”, and they would release more details of the extension later today.
So much for current test and trace effectiveness. Japan and the USA are rushing vaccines to Taiwan because AIUI the CCP is trying to prevent vaccines from countries more under CCP influence from reaching Taiwan.

Comparable figures for the UK are 4.5million cases and 128thousand deaths. Adjusting for population that would be 1.6million case and 45thousand deaths in Taiwan.

So 45 thousand deaths or 260 deaths? Perhaps people are having trouble telling which is larger. Bless their hearts.

Or perhaps they just prefer 45 thousand deaths. Not sure what we should do to their hearts in that case.

Lootman wrote:
Yes, the much-vaunted "Taiwan Solution" turned out to be more like the "Taiwan Great Deferral".

Quite. The numbers in Taiwan today are roughly were the US and UK were about March 30 2020. So they delayed things by 14 months.

Much can happen in 14 months. People can go about their lives. Treatments can be developed. PPE can be acquired and PPE production lines can be set up. Tests can be refined. If you have a bit of luck vaccines can be developed, tested, be put into mass production and be on the way to becoming as available and cheap as chips. And perhaps the horse will learn to sing.

Even if Taiwan is unable to contain the current out break using non-pharmalogical interventions* and they get a first wave as bad as the UK or the US they will still be able to avoid second and subsequent waves, which means less than half the deaths and illness.

* For the record I think they will limit this outbreak.

9873210 wrote: 45 thousand deaths or 260 deaths? Perhaps people are having trouble telling which is larger. Bless their hearts.

You think the death count is the only metric?

Bless your heart!

I am not saying that the Taiwanese test and trace has not been much more effective than the British version, just that it has been insufficiently effective to banish Covid without vaccination, which is basically the same situation as the UK.

However, the Taiwan authorities have a much more thorough knowledge of where their people are, and what they are doing. AIUI (and maybe somebody can confirm or correct me) the Taiwanese tracers have detailed phone records, bank card transaction data, and total surveillance. The UK Govt opted not to keep this level of data on people, so in Britain everything depends on people's honesty, and it has been shown that British people are just not very honest. Survey data last summer showed that only 20% of infected people and their contacts actually isolated themselves.

Nimrod103 wrote:I am not saying that the Taiwanese test and trace has not been much more effective than the British version, just that it has been insufficiently effective to banish Covid without vaccination, which is basically the same situation as the UK.

However, the Taiwan authorities have a much more thorough knowledge of where their people are, and what they are doing. AIUI (and maybe somebody can confirm or correct me) the Taiwanese tracers have detailed phone records, bank card transaction data, and total surveillance. The UK Govt opted not to keep this level of data on people, so in Britain everything depends on people's honesty, and it has been shown that British people are just not very honest. Survey data last summer showed that only 20% of infected people and their contacts actually isolated themselves.

That's probably a bit harsh; sure there's always the aerosols to worry about but everywhere has them

Taiwan financially compensated their citizens if and when they had to isolate from the start of the pandemic (including during the waiting periods)

I don't think the equivalent scheme was up and running in England till about October (and I'm not sure how easy it is to access)
- with an economy a decent proportion of which is geared to run on 0 hours contracts etc there's a lot of hand to mouth earning

Which gives you the same problem as India has, basically isolate or eat; that doesn't make it a question of honesty

- sd

servodude wrote: Which gives you the same problem as India has, basically isolate or eat; that doesn't make it a question of honesty

- sd

I know from my circle of friends, acquaintances and relatives that there has been widespread flouting of Covid regulations. It is just British human nature to push the boundaries and assume that everything will be OK. And then blame everyone else for disobeying the regulations. Look at Kate Burley.