{"id":54,"date":"2020-05-25T09:05:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-25T08:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbannonsblog.aprendo.co.uk\/drbannonsblog_wp\/2020\/05\/25\/covid-19-may-update\/"},"modified":"2021-03-25T08:33:46","modified_gmt":"2021-03-25T08:33:46","slug":"covid-19-may-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbannonsblog.aprendo.co.uk\/drbannonsblog_wp\/2020\/05\/25\/covid-19-may-update\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID 19 – May Update."},"content":{"rendered":"

As Einstein so famously said, making mistakes is human, to repeat them, insane. We do things, learn lessons, repeat what we do well and not what we don’t. Ideally. <\/span>

<\/span>Scale that up and we have this years experience with COVID to look at. We have different nations and different ways of managing the virus to compare, so it’s time to scratch our heads and reflect. As ever, this is not easy. Humble pie is in the oven, cooking time uncertain.<\/span>

<\/span>Now that the data from COVID is piling in from all over the world, it’s clear that rates of infections <\/span>in the northern hemisphere <\/span>are falling, though globally the pandemic rages on.  The NHS is reconfiguring again, this time to deal with the backlog of work built up over the first wave as well as people needing ongoing help with treatment and rehabilitation from COVID19.<\/span>

<\/span>So for us, perhaps that is the end of the beginning. Or is it?<\/span>

<\/span> <\/p>\n

Fattening curves.<\/span><\/h3>\n


<\/span>Im afraid this isn’t a typo. <\/span>

<\/span>Here in the UK new cases seem to be running along at a stubborn 3,000 or so a day over here and deaths rates are slowly falling – our curves are flattening, but fattening too. <\/span>

<\/span>Looking wider, we have not flattened the national curve in the way in the way we might have hoped for when compared to our continental neighbours. Have a look at the information from <\/span>John Hopkins University in the US is you want more details<\/a>. Their level of detail is incredible. <\/span><\/span>

<\/span><\/span>Here is our graph, with the decline in cases far slower than the increase in March.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
UK daily cases and 5 day average<\/span>

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
\n
Sweden have and even fatter curve, with worrying persistence of cases when compared to their Nordic neighbours. It looks like lockdowns matter!<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Swedens daily cases and 5 day average<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Italy, for one example have had more success in reducing overall deaths. These international comparisons reveal how much we have to learn.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Italy daily cases and 5 day averag<\/span>e<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n


<\/span>There are big differences within countries too, in London cases are now falling, elsewhere they are increasing. The need for regional and local management is looking increasingly essential to deal with potential summer outbreaks and winter waves as well as the endemic phase thereafter.<\/span>

<\/span><\/p>\n

Spanners in the works:<\/span><\/h3>\n


<\/span>I have included cartoons to make reading this section more bearable.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span>Austerity<\/b><\/span>

<\/span>The ongoing impacts of slimmed down public services mean that any theoretical savings made by austerity have been dwarfed by their costs. In other words, investment in the future works. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n


<\/span>Our slimmed down local councils and public health bodies in particular have not been able to do the job they are designed for. Austerity was behind this, but also a politically driven  centralising of power unheard of till now. Our council budgets have been cut to the bone, even before the crisis they were struggling to fund their legal obligations in care and welfare to our children.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>
Without a shadow of a doubt, austerity has cost lives, created misery and cost money.<\/span>

<\/span>
<\/span>Advanced planning.<\/b> <\/span>

<\/span><\/a>Not because it wasn’t done, but because good planning has been ignored. I listened to Jeremy Hunt last night revealing his take on the problem with planning. It is not, he said, that many of the recommendations of planing exercises were not acted upon<\/span> but that they were designed for a novel flu virus and not for coronaviruses. <\/span>

<\/span>This is unbelievably lame as we had already had warnings from SARS and MERS to alert us to the real dangers. Lack of sufficient PPE in the stores tell the story. Not cancelling big events like England Rugby, Cheltenham and footie matches (Liverpool vs AC Madrid would you believe) e<\/span>pitomises the delay in making the right decisions early. <\/span>

<\/span><\/span>
Get ready for lots of excuses. <\/span>A little honesty, humility even, really would go a long way. <\/span>

<\/span>Centralisation<\/b><\/span><\/span>

<\/span>Central diktats applied in blanket form to the whole country are sometimes necessary but local and regional voices have been marginalised by Chinese-style levels of over-centralisation. The situation in Devon and elsewhere is very different from London, decisions here would have been different too.<\/span>

<\/span>In a way all outbreaks are local and the marginalisation of local authorities and their capability to test and trace has made action on the ground difficult.<\/span>

<\/span><\/span>
There will be reasonable calls for devolved power to the regions in the same way as in Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland. COVID19 gives this argument lots of ammunition.<\/span>

<\/b><\/span><\/span>
<\/b><\/span><\/span>Decision making<\/b><\/span><\/span>

<\/span><\/span><\/a>It sometimes seems that decision making has made on the hoof and entirely within Number 10. Delay, uncertainly and perhaps lack of urgency meant windows of opportunity were closed before the political curtains were even pulled back. <\/span><\/span>

<\/span><\/span>We have to admit that “closing Heathrow” wont have been an easy call, but the needs were clear long before the decisions were made.<\/span><\/span>

<\/span><\/span>Flattening the curve is the least ambitious aspiration as compared to reducing the total numbers affected.<\/span><\/span>

<\/span><\/span>Messages on reducing individual risk have been absent.<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/span>Press briefings<\/b><\/span>

<\/b><\/span><\/a>For many of us, the daily press briefings have been a crafted balancing act between self congratulation and dutiful expression of grief. However, over-emphasis on back slapping and gratitude has detracted from objectivity. <\/span>

<\/span>They might had had the function of lifting the nations morale but have veered too far towards becoming party political broadcasts with legal teams in the background yelling “Don’t admit to anything!” <\/span>

<\/span>I have lost count of the times <\/span>I have heard the lines:<\/span><\/p>\n