Saturday, 21 March 2020
COVOID19
My good friend Bowland Climber who comments here has just posted the link below on his blog. I have repleid as per copy below but in order to spread this message as much as possible I am repeating it here and strongly uge everybody to read it and re-post from their own source so that we can get this over to as many people as possible. Time is obviuously vitaly important.
This morning I awoke to read another blogger I follow who WAS embarked on his round Brtain walk which he abandoned and has now found he is a victim himself - again sober reading but real life and unadourned.
https://5000milewalk.wordpress.com/2020/03/20/12%C2%BD-coronavirus-interruption/
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0877mb2?fbclid=IwAR3vAf2InWHLrkSV5t5vMWedzZYA0VR5ykZKvzz7IWmrp5po4hUqJQhZTx8
My reply on BC's post:
I've just listened to that. My son thinks I am getting too embroiled in the whole thing and up to a point I can see that not being a good thing but here we have the absolute truth about what is going on compared with prime minister's briefings and an avaalnche of stuff on the media that is difficult to dissemeinate. I will be more selective I think in future and try not to be too immersed but having said that, if there is one source that I think everybody in the country should take on board it is this moving and real assesment.
To any other readers here:
EVEN IF YOU ARE SCARED OR IN SOME SORT OF DENIAL OR FEELING YOU DON"T WANT TO BE UPSET I STRONGLY ADVISE YOU LISTEN TO THIS INTERVIEW OR TO BE MORE EMPHATIC I THINK YOU MUST.
I once heard Quintin Hogg discussing individual experience versus knowledge and understanding gained from education and analysis of a wide range of data and sources - and that this applies as much in civil policy as on the battlefield : one persons experience, particularly in times of stress, is not necessarily an accurate representation of the whole: they highlight immediate and local issues, of course, but have to be measured against the wider situation. Otherwise policy risks being based on emotion not evidence. He summarised it simply : whom do you trust ? the person who has read one book, or the person who has studied the whole library ? One book may have new insights, but must still be measured and tested against history. Not ignored, with a closed mind, nor taken as divine revelation.
ReplyDeleteBut - as in the case of this interview - direct reportage and dramatic personal experience can seize the attention of people who would otherwise ignore general advice and galvanise them to act appropriately.
Set against that, his advice to take notice and not to assume invincibility is absolutely basic, but where I think he risks creating alarm, is not in the crucial matter of compliance with this advice, but to apparently undermine and diminish confidence in the quite revolutionary efforts being made not only to control the spread of the disease but to increase the capacity to deal with its victims.
In this he may be inciting panic, which is the enemy of effective action.
It would have been a nonsense to have the whole health system constantly ready to handle an event of this kind all the time, as well as doing everything else it does daily - a huge waste of both manpower and materials - but it makes perfect sense to try to extend the time needed to create the extra resources by introducing , advising and if necessary imposing measures scientifically devised and calculated, to provide that time in which to mobile all possible means to create, provide and mobilise the physical and human resources required.
It is no good ignoring advice and failing to do sensible things, but equally dangerous to assume that nothing is being done - that 'we are all doomed' - and create fear and despondency.
I am not advocating the attitude that 'the government is always right" (heaven forbid) but I would challenge anyone with a grasp of the scale and resources required to present their own superior plan !
gimmer - that is fair comment and well put. As in so many situations those that criticise would be hard put to offer a better plan. One often sees this in the House of Commons when the opposition leader (and I am just generalising here regardless of particular parties) criticises the Government but has no constructive alternative to offer. Having said that this guy wasn't criticising, not that you indicated he was. What he was doing was to present a graphic first hand picture of the situation from an informed professional and the need for misguded, obstinate and downright idiotic people to take responsibility, and if that relied on as you say a narrow individual perspective so be it, and if that is what it takes and it has some effect it was worthwhile. Nobody would be in any doubt as to the sincerity and accuracy of what was said in contrast to the confusing mass of information across the media.
ReplyDeletewhilst we write and comment, much is being done to expand the resources - vide the deal to use all the private sector beds - and ventilators - somewhat as if Blucher had arrived the day before . . . . many lives, both Allied and French, would have been saved, with the same beneficial outcome , of course - or better - perhaps B would have been captured on the field !
ReplyDeleteWhich would have put paid to the persistent myth that he wasn't really defeated but betrayed - a bit like the Kaiser a century later. But I digress . . . (it must be your favourite disease, cabin fever)
I don't really take much notice of the media but I have noticed what seem like persistent attempts on the BBC website to belittle the Government moves and highlight the inevitable hiccups and gaps as if they were deliberate and malign: some there have never forgiven 'the people's vote' and blame all things from climate change to starving sparrows, with covid-19 a heaven sent opportunity for carping, in between - on Brexit / The Government.
i will soon be signing off as 'disgusted of deepest westmorland' I fear.