Quote of the day Sunday 26th April 2020
Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria
Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Comments
why were carehomes asked to take back covid patients this has to be regarded as nothing short of reckless. Its quite right the telegraph is also asking the government to explain itself
As I asked the other day, why are the nightingales Still sat empty? I have seen a few people mention how the last place they would go with anything other than covid is to a hospital. I hope this article proves to be incorrect.
So yes, there are generally no solutions there are only trade offs, and moving covid patients into the nightingales may cause them to be a little less comfortable, and they may not have all the facilitys of a full on hospital, its a fair trade off.
I do agree that we should be looking to see whether we can do better.
The fact of the matter is that policy desisions are killing people, and if you don't accept that is bad management then I would hate to see what is.
There were no good options to deal with this, only a choice of bad options. That is still the case.
You raise an issue which I have also heard today from other sources and which greatly concerns me.
I and others had been assured that it was not the policy of the government, CCC or the local NHS to discharge patients who there was any risk might bring COVID-19 with them from hospitals into care homes.
I am very concerned indeed to hear that, in spite of that, it may have happened.
If that is true it is completely unacceptable and has to stop, and if it is true that is something I would indeed accept has been badly managed.
In general terms, do I think that everything that was done, by the UK government or anyone else was perfect? Of course not.
But as you yourself correctly pointed out, the government has made every effort to learn from it's mistakes and changed policies where the expert advice was that they were not working.
It's taken a lot longer to build up the level of testing and PPE than anyone wanted but both those things are now happening
There are lots of armchair experts - some of them in every party and some in none - who argue with what may appear to be the benefit of hindsight that we should have gone into lockdown earlier, or had a more severe lockdown. There are others arguing the opposite or that it is time to relax it now.
They can't all be right. Personally I buy into the argument that if we'd gone into lockdown earlier it would have done even more damage to the economy and might have started to fray at the worst possible time, the peak of the curve.
I understand that a plan to gradually relax the lockdown is going to be brought out in the next few days, and I welcome that, but we can't do it until we're ready and yes, that includes the ability to track and test.
Looking at the situation around the world, there is no country which publishes statistics within a mile of being plausible which hasn't taken a hammer blow to the economy, and no country remotely comparable to ours which has not suffered a horrifying number of deaths. Those countries which at one stage were held up as success stories are now also running into problems.
We're probably now past the peak of the first wave. We are not remotely through this crisis. We probably won't be until a vaccine has shown to be effective, reliable and safe and most of our population have had that vaccine. And until we reach that stage we won't really be able to make a fair assessment of whether we're doing well or badly.
What it is worth doing now is discussing what is the best way forward. Because I accept that most of what you write is aimed at doing that, Jim, I'm willing to engage with you even though I don't agree with everything you say.
I wish certain other people would learn to operate on the same basis instead of just hurling insults.