Great news. Unless you're a transgenic mouse. Where's @Nexxo ? The Dutch done good, he surely has to sail the gloat boat by.
Surprised... nobody. I am waiting for the inquiry into 'the failure of the NHS to cope with demand,' next year, just you watch these ****ers will do it.
Sorry to hear @adidan. A bit of news: US to borrow record $3tn as spending soars Everything is fine. Nothing to see here. Move along sir.
That's a bit tenuous. They article says that some new services like contact tracing are to be provided externally. That isn't "dismantling". We aren't going to be contact tracing forever so why have all of them on the permanent NHS payroll?
Suggestion that obesity may be more of a factor than age for the virus Tweet— Twitter API (@user) date
Even if we take it as you say, why on earth are Deloitte getting handed more NHS work when they messed up previously with the testing contracts? https://www.consultancy.uk/news/amp/24472/deloitte-criticised-for-covid-19-testing-role Privatisation starts incrementally, foot in the door.
Thanks. They're the other side of the world but even if they were over here they couldn't have visited him anyway I guess. Genuine question. If every country in the world is borrowing money, who are they borrowing from?
Oversimplified version: Fiat currency (the Pound Sterling, US Dollar, Chinese Yaun, etc) and 'sovereign debt' are for the most part the same thing: 'print' a dollar, and you have generated $1 debt. They key is that debt does not need to be immediately serviced: nobody needs to 'buy' it right now as with debt-funding for companies, and nobody needs to 'give' the nation money at that time. The debt is usually not 'paid back', because that would be (again, pretty much) the same as collecting and destroying that printed currency. Then you have government debt instruments, which are not quite the same as printing currency directly but act as markets for that debt. These are a bit more akin to company shares, in that another entity (a state, a company, an individual) 'buys' some debt, then receives (they hope, and is usually the case hence why government debt is a big market) the amount they paid back again spread over time - e.g. you buy £1 of government debt, and you get 1p a week back for two years, netting you £1.02 after two years in exchange for the government borrowing your £1 at the start for whatever they needed it for at that moment. As for where the money 'comes from': pretty much The Future. The expectation is that unless the country itself is going to spiral into ruin in the near future, they will still be around to service the debt over many decades. If a country tries to 'default' and refuses to pay it, then there are some major penalties: other nations may refuse to service any debt the defaulting country is owed by them (and because everyone is borrowing from everyone else this becomes for the most part a zero-sum move that cuts off a funding source), other nations may go after private entities that operate outside the defaulting nation to service the debt (leading to those private entities making life very difficult for the defaulting government), potential attempts to service the debt by seizure (i.e. war), etc. It's a huge amount of No Fun for everyone involved. Which is probably why Trump suggested 'cancelling Chinese debt' all of once before being quietly told to STFU and that it doesn't work that way. Disclaimer: not an economist, and there are such a massive number of edge cases that it's mostly edge. When you're a sovereign nation lending/borrowing from another sovereign nation, you can pretty much write your own rules as long as both nations agree.
Not just contact tracing (and "keeping data for future research"? Not exactly in keeping with Caldicott guidelines on confidentiality of information...). There is central procurement as well, which in the hands of a private company makes for some fierce opportunism. It's small, incremental steps, hollowing out the institution behind the blue logo. And the NHS does temporary contracts too, so that's no excuse.
Per capita we're worse than France and don't even dare compare us in any way to Germany if you don't want to question what the hell we've been doing.
Considering each country is making up their own standards on how to count the victims (and not even keeping the standards constant for the duration of the outbreak) country to country comparisons should be taken with a huge grain of salt...
Fair point. I mean Belgium appears to be faring terribly but they include any death that may possibly in any way at all have any covid link whatsoever.
