Cant compare Uk to New Zealand sorry just doesnt work that way. London has twice the population of New Zealand by itself in a effectively a 400 square mile block. Compare Uk to France would be much more like for like, 1 Major City each (Paris / London) Lots of smaller big cities. Lots of open countryside in other areas. Shock we have similar case numbers per population size as they do. I hate boris as much as the next person, But still we gotta hate with accurate facts. Question for everyone, How many people have you touched / hugged / kissed / or held hands with outside of your bubble since the orginal march lockdown? Mine is 0, How many can honestly say the same. How many thought it was a good idea to bring in everyone at christmas ? those figures are not even in the current figures due to time it takes to be infected
Me, we're not counting self love here are we Nope, s'why we cancelled all visits and guests to ours in the autumn.
I can honestly say the same. ...now ask how many times I did any of that with people outside my bubble before the original March lockdown...
I can. The number is also zero within household / bubble since I live alone. Conversations with neighbours at the door is the most rule breaking I've done.
Wow, we have never been told that the Tories are about to privatise the NHS here before, have we? The thing is after 27 years of Conservative government in the last 40 years it doesn't seem to have happened, does it?
I think the other point being made is that we could have been more like NZ if we'd only acted in similar fashion far earlier. Doesn't matter how many people on the island if the virus isn't present, the doors are closed and there's a quarantine policy in place for arrivals. I do concede that the higher comparable population density would mean that a slip-up would explode far quicker, but then we're getting into containment policy, which NZ also seem to have handled quite well. Admittedly it would be stable door/horse right now, but then there's also better late than never, to use another. I just got off the phone with a guy from Manc who came back from working in the US at Christmas after having had the virus, and he said he walked out of Heathrow in ten minutes without anybody checking his test report, then went back up to Manchester. He filled out the track and trace form but to date, nobody has contacted him. I don't know the exact dates, but using level of awareness as a guide, if we'd shut the doors at the same level of awareness as the point when NZ did it and with the same protocols in place, it may well have been a different story.
Ahem: I give you the Health and Social Care Act 2012, which introduced Clinical Commissioning Groups and a requirement that they put health services out to competitive tender. Then there's the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 which brought about the NHS 'internal market' and compulsory competitive tendering for support services, introduced by the Tories, GP Fundholding, introduced by the Tories in 1991, the Private Financial Initiative, which John Major introduced in 1992 which was replaced in 2018 but with many projects still running under PFI today, then there's the introduction of Alternative Provider Medical Services contracts many of which have been taken up by large corporations, 2005's Choose and Book system which offered NHS patients appointments with private healthcare providers (since replaced by NHS e-Referral), the creation of PropCo and the sell-off of NHS properties, the Future Operating Model of the NHS Supply Chain (PDF warning) which is absolutely dominated by private companies... Oh, and Jeremy Hunt's book which calls for the literal privatisation of the NHS, his various colleagues with private healthcare links, Matt Hancock's backing of a private firm picking up NHS dentistry slack... Not that Labour hasn't helped things along the way: Blair introduced Independent Sector Treatment Centres as part of the NHS Plan 2000. But sure, there's no privatisation ongoing. That's why friendly billionaire Richard Branson literally sued the NHS for £2 million and won after missing out on a private contract for healthcare provision. Seeing a pattern yet?
Come on dude, you are better than that. It being done piece by piece doesn't change the fact that both Tories and Labour have been at it: https://fullfact.org/health/how-much-more-nhs-spending-private-providers/ Edit, beaten to the punch... see the previous post by Gareth for much more detail.
IME, no. He does not. I'm not even remotely affiliated with the NHS, but it's quite hard to not notice all the changes that're a result of the 'death by a thousand cuts' privatisation of the NHS.
The NHS as most think of it died under the coalition govt. The NHS is now just a branding exercise atop whatever private company is contracted to provide the services.
How about Thailand? Large urban area with other centres together with farmland meaning a nationally similar population density for a similar population as the UK and quite a different outcome.
You can compare approaches, of course it'll never be an exact like for like scenario. The point i've been making is we've never checked our borders, NZ currently has 61 cases - all 61 diagnosed at the border. We wouldn't know if there were 61 or 61000 coming through/returning, that is an easy and effective variable we could have controlled for a long time ago.
In four years time the next election will again be "the last chance to save the NHS" but not for the last time either.
In other news Bloomberg has some good data on how global vaccination progress is going. (Scroll down from the US state-by-state at the top.) https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/ Will be good to see those numbers get up around the world, but if you looked at that Welcome Trust report I linked last year, anti-vax views are very strong in various countries.
The favourite killing ground of Covid (Nursing Homes) isn't all that common in Asia. I'd reckon that played a large role in Asia making it through Rona relatively unscathed.
They may not have nursing homes, but I'm sure their elderly all live within their towns, villages and cities - don't know if that's better or worse. On the one hand, there are many more transmission vectors; on the other, in a home, not many people are running around getting off with each other (I assume) and it's contained.
