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But how long do you consider the whole process from ordering to front line would it take ?.

....and I have also heard from two different sources and to different places that 'stuff' has been going missing ( and sold on in one of them ) !!

The other has had to put everything under lock and key !

If we had national reserves like we had for many years, that wouldn't be so critical.

Knowing we didn't have national reserves available the orders should have gone in at the end of January latest, the disease had spread to the UK by then and they knew how fast it had blown up in China despite China being more prepared and practised than us.

I have just been discussing elsewhere, against current disinformation, Shanghai and Beijing were infected very early, like before China had five known deaths, but China contained it very fast.

The UK is the worst performing nation with Belgium being just behind us. 12.5% of registered cases have died in the UK. NHS Nightingale was predicting that around 80% of cases moved there would die.

While we are on NHS Nightingale,this is only a 500 bed hospital not the 5000 beds in 9 days the Government boasted, I find it hard to believe it has the 500 ventilators in place, it was stated every bed would have a ventilator.

Liverpool is also about to start on a 500 bed hospital, using the same factor i guess stage one will be 50 beds.

You still haven't answered my question .

No country was prepared and if you believe China has sorted it, then I'm a monkey.. Same with various other countries , but saying that, we know many of the ME countries wear their hijabs , so maybe that is protecting them... i.e. against other recommendations . They haven't even got soap in half the towns and villages of these countries.

•If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with suspected 2019-nCoV infection.
•Wear a mask if you are coughing or sneezing.
•Masks are effective only when used in combination with frequent hand-cleaning with alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water.
•If you wear a mask, then you must know how to use it and dispose of it properly

https://www.who.int/emergencies/dis...ice-for-public/when-and-how-to-use-masks

The fact that nobody anywhere, like throughout the world, can get their hands on masks, or hand gel is quite odd. Someone will be making them, as they are the gel in Birkenhead ! Maybe this is a transition period and we'll all be wearing hijabs soon. We can get them online !


Well I reckon we can make our own, washable masks.

Why are you asking that question? You know there is no "correct answer" and any answer I give is irrelevant.

The equipment should have been stockpiled before any emergency crops up. As soon as it was clear the disease was going Global the Government should of ordered large amounts of equipment , not just PPE but also ventilators etc, the nature of the disease was well known. Some of it should have been flown here because of the shortages, not delivered by boat.

APH got 300,000 masks delivered the other day, there can't be that much of a shortage if one single hospital (minor trust) gets that massive quantity delivered in one day.

33 million pieces of PPE were delivered to the NHS on the 8th April. Yet in days prior to this NHS workers with coronavirus patients were using jury-rigged untested equipment, some nurses were using cheap dust masks and wearing bin bags. Why wasn't some of the equipment flown in? At the same time we have a significant number of RAF transport (C17s, C130s) aircraft flying round in circles above the UK doing non-functional exercises and taking advantage of the relatively quiet airspace and civilian airports.

I am also amazed the our NHS trust appear to have been given one third of the whole consignment of masks, that just doesn't ring true especially as our Trust is not even classed as an "Acute Trust" but the Government have been sneaky there. Coronavirus was downgraded from high risk to medium risk, this means it doesn't have to be treated at an acute trust, this also means that hospitals not set up for this level of acute care nor having the expertise are being used with no priority of sending patients to acute trusts.

I am talking about PPE and other equipment for use in the NHS coronavirus areas not for use by the general public that your link refers to.

The Government's own advice is for NHS acute CV areas are to use respirators, I can't recall seeing one respirator in use by staff on the various videos of CV wards in the UK. I have seen valved masks which are sometimes called respirator masks. A respirator has forced filtered air to maintain a positive air pressure at all times, other countries are using them. But of course the Government has covered its backside by downgrading CV from high to medium so there is no requirement for it to be classed as acute care even though it blatantly is.

Hospitals were struggling last year in one of the mildest flu and d&v seasons we have had for a long time - that is because of serious underfunding and mismanagement by the Government.

China was prepared, look at their statistics compared to ours (0.0002% died to our 0.0145% - we are seventy two times greater and we haven't hit peak yet . China stopped the spread in most places apart from Wuhen area, this might not be the best strategy but it shows they had the capability, we haven't got the ability to partly control it let alone stop it.

South Korea was prepared as were other countries like Japan and Taiwan who were amongst the first countries to get infected, long before us.

In 2008/9 that we had 14,000 deaths attributed to flu, we need to be prepared, even using a capitalist model the investment required in the NHS is a pittance compared to the cost to the economy of not being prepared, many of the costs are one off and have little ongoing costs.

Then there are the numerous companies that produce this equipment in the UK that have not been approached. David Humpston (ex Dragons Den) produces 1000 face shields a day for pharmacies and care homes, he hasn't been approached. At least four UK ventilator manufacturers weren't approached even after the Government got into a very late panic and asked JCB etc to manufacture. Has the Government never heard of the internet or trade directories?

We had a phone call yesterday saying someone we knew had passed away in APH with covid 19, had been in hospital over a week with another medical problem not associated with covid, the question is where was she contaminated, because without testing the source is unclear, and remains a viable threat to others.

Covid 19 is in the hospitals, same as any other virus. How any nurses, cleaners, cooks, admin, etc. etc. travel to and from work by public transport ? It could go in to the hospitals on their coats or gloves .
We are following the same pattern as the other countries.

If one person is infected, how long before symptoms show ? Up to two weeks and beyond. In those two weeks, how many have those people infected which might not show up for two weeks ? So already we have got a month further on and contamination in hospitals could easily have been there from the beginning. Not every nook and cranny will be cleansed in any hospital and it could be all over the hospital, not just a specific isolation ward.

As a world, we have f**** d up and now it's come back to bite us on the bum.

March 18th 2020.. Advice from WHO.. we are now 4 weeks on and we will still be feeling the affects of that advice .

Basic protective measures against the new coronavirus

Stay aware of the latest information on the COVID-19 outbreak, available on the WHO website and through your national and local public health authority. Most people who become infected experience mild illness and recover, but it can be more severe for others. Take care of your health and protect others by doing the following:

Maintain social distancing

Maintain at least 1 metre (3 feet) distance between yourself and anyone who is coughing or sneezing.

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public

So they gave that BAD advice too !!

Highlighted things in RED so that people don't think it's up to date advice.

@ DD have you seen the spraying those countries you mention have done within the cities ? The whole of Wuhan was drowend in disinfectant. They have cities , big cities. We have a different spread of population to those countries in Asia.
We don't know how many people in the countryside in China etc are infected , because they won't even be hospitalised or counted.
We are certainly not getting the true figures from Iran or Syria they are begging for relief on sanctions so they can get much needed medicine , but sanctions are NOT being lifted. How cruel is that ? Gaza and Palestine two more we shall hear little about.

Live by the sword die by the sword !

It was mentioned on a programme the other day that Germany have a different way of producing their figures, and you yourself have on at least once occasion said that ours and others data is inaccurate.

I also believe their is a lot of skullduggery going on. When Spain ordered from China, which was being despatch via Ankara , Turkey would not release it to Spain for whatever reasons. That held up Spain's preventative operation. Oddly enough, Turkey have this last week supplied UK . Now where did they get their supplies from ?

With regard to supplies arriving by sea ( 3,500 containers would be a difficult send by air) to the UK and being despatched to the final point of need, I would say 3,500 containers is likely to take at least 2 weeks but nearer to 3 weeks . I spent weeks in port with my husband when he was on the container ships and the cargo loading and unloading was nowhere near 3,500 units.

I don't want to get into the blame game , that will come later..When we do come through this hope the whole world has learnt lessons and now take notice of people who foresaw this. Watched Bill Gates being interviewed this morning and they showed a clip of him at a presentation warning that it's not a nuclear bomb we should fear but a virus, this was five years ago! We've seen all the warning and yet the whole world was not prepared for this , the speed and devastating effects and of course deaths.
I was shocked and sickened by the image of those coffins in New York being put in mass graves, like something from another era. America a big powerful country being rocked to the core by this so it doesn't matter where you live or which government in power if something like this happens , as humans we pretty weak and vulnerable and in the great scheme of things defenceless if world wants to take us out!

We need to kick the Government into gear now, there are still many lives on the line - better late than never. Every single avoidable death is important even if we have been brain washed into accepting death as hyper-normality these days.

The UK being the 5th richest country is accepting charitable gestures from developing nations like Turkey which has a quarter of our wealth - how embarassing is that and a indictment of our piss poor governance.

They wont admit they have got it wrong DD, the blame will fall on someone or something else, the saying lions led by donkeys seems very apt at this time, if we are lucky enough to have a break through,Boris will be fit enough to take the bow, they have fallen down badly by not even supplying the basics for the protection of the front line.

Have i missed some news today? Has the lock down ended, only asking because as i look though my window, the amount of people walking about just looks like a normal Sunday, they all can't be going to the shops? saw a driving school picking a learner driver up, next door's neighbour taking their kids in to their nans for a bar-b-q in back garden, a lad giving his girlfriend a lift on his push bike, never mind the amount of cars on the road, as i looked at the figures a few hours ago, we are up to nearly 80,000 sick and close to 10,000 dead, i just don't get it, am i missing something somewhere, my friend phoned me up yesterday to see if i was ok and told me his ex wife had just come out of hospital and is recovering, she had Covid, her father also has it but sadly died, and a lot more will also looking though my window, madness!

Turkey may have sourced from its national reserve or from China.

Virgin Unite Foundation sourced 350,000 pieces PPE and other equipment in Shanghai, flew it to UK in a 787-9 and delivered it to the UK on the 3rd April. I believe most of it went to Guys Hospital.

I've seen the 3,500 containers quoted a number of times, I've not seen a source? It seems very excessive?

A few associated facts and figures.

One standard container (20ft) can hold about two million examination gloves, limited by weight not volume, in fact the container would be pretty empty.

Container ship trip from Shanghai to Liverpool is just over 20 days at normal cruising speed of 24 knots.

A C17(III) can carry 70 tonnes of cargo (three containers worth), would need to refuel two times (air-to-air or landing) but would take just one day.

A 787-9 used as a cargo plane can carry 52 tonnes of cargo (two and a half containers worth), presuming it does the journey in two hops ie one refuel. It could do it in one hop but I'd guess the payload would be down to under 20 tonnes

How long did it take you work that lot out ?

Did the container ship arrive from Shanghai ? Never said that on the BBC News Northwest when they told us on their live broadcast about the 3,500 containers arriving that day. That was one shipment, another shipment contained animal feed and grain.

Used to take 2 weeks UK to Panama, and 2 weeks Panama to New Zealand.