PM in Intensive Care...

Quote: Cronus "Absolute rubbish.

Nothing to do with following WHO and scientific recommendations, of course? Oh no. Nothing to do with that.

Look, it's always seemed logical to me that although a crappy, ill-fitting mask will do next to nothing to prevent you catching an airborne virus, it could help prevent an infected person spread it by catching some of the infected droplets in their breath/sneezes/coughs. However, many scientific studies and WHO advice on this have been very clear from day one: unless FFP2/3 and professionally fitted, masks are mostly useless and therefore not required outside a medical/care environment. And that's before we even consider the lack of eye protection...

But - fast forward to the last few weeks and WHO advice has been gradually shifting based on a couple of studies in Hong Kong and other places, and if we're hoping to relax the lockdown soon it makes sense we take additional measures alongside social distancing, hand-washing etc.

And although I don't believe it was a factor bearing in mind face mask recommendations were already in place, so what if NHS supplies were prioritised? Do you not accept they are far more important in a medical or care setting? Or that if the government had recommended face masks, 67 million Brits all rushing out to buy all the masks they can find might have had pretty severely detrimental affect on supplies - which were already stretched beyond belief? Or in your brain is everything simply "Bojo and da Tories dun bad".

At the same time, you talk about ineptitude and complain incessantly of how the government/NHS struggled to maintain levels of PPE at times - well, so did you. Are you therefore inept? Shall we all slag you off in similar fashion? Multiply your struggles a million-fold and perhaps you'll get some idea of the challenges faced by NHS procurement, governments worldwide and probably 99% of general hospitals, doctor's surgeries and care homes on the planet. At least when you get hold of PPE you don't have 58,000 locations all demanding it. I think what I'm trying to say is, wind yer neck in: you, the NHS and the government are all doing the very best you can, and doing a grand job, in hugely challenging conditions.
Yes please do lecture me on the correct use and efficacy of PPE; the arrogance of the Tory fanboy, who "follows the science" - provided that science is advantageous to whatever position he's taking today. When there is divergence of course, either the science was wrong, or we're sick of experts. All from a position of sitting comfortably at home on furlough, obtaining expert knowledge from Google.

With regards to ineptitude - as I've explained to Sal Paradise at least 4 times; no, the fact that the care sector didn't stockpile PPE was not an indication of ineptitude - because we weren't privy to the findings of Operation Cygnus, which made that recommendation - the Govt were, and *chose* not to. Had they done so, they could have made it available (at market rates, before Sal trots out his other regular attack line about private orgs wanting freebies.) So all of the well publicised struggles of obtaining PPE now - which is entirely understandable when the whole world wants it - could have been mitigated in part by implementing the recommendations of their own exercise.

On that basis, I won't wind my neck in ta - I'll carry on highlighting all the ways that the Govt has failed the care sector - because unlike many of the apologistas, I actually know what I'm talking about; my network consists of MD's and CEO's of all the main players in the sector, and I can confidently assure you that I am not a lone voice - and most of these people are natural Tories. See it's ok to be broadly in support of a party, but be critical of some of their actions when the situation warrants - which this one clearly does.

Having said - Boris nearly died, whilst remaining chipper and in charge at all times - so I wouldn't want to be too hard on them; having one of the worst excess mortality rates is probably just a counting error.