Let's get a few things straight 1
April 3rd, 2020 – 6pm
So this is what it's like to be in China.
It's horrible to have things drip-fed to you, information tightly controlled, released bit by bit lest you over-react (or react in a way that is determined by someone else to be detrimental to the state).
I think the time has come to sweep away the bollocks and talk straight. If you're the sort of person who doesn't like straight talking, (or feels it might be detrimental to the state) then don't read this. You have been warned.
There are a number of things that are under wraps. The government doesn't want you to be talking about them, or thinking that way, or any of that stuff. That's because they are not ready to talk about them, and would prefer not to.
A slew of interviews on the media (which I ration my consumption of) make it quite clear that Britain was unprepared for the pandemic despite the warnings of the World Health Organisation (WHO) which gave everyone plenty of time to get prepared. Even now, Britain is stumbling about trying to get some tests up and running with an ever increasing sense of desperation. At the same time they are pretending that Korea and Germany among many others who tested early and often, and still are, do not have a much lower death rate than we do. When WHO gave its advice on how to handle the virus outbreak, it said, inter alia: "Test, test, test." It was unequivocal, clear, direct and knowledgeable advice backed by science.
We didn't do it, and the hubris was palpable. It was a tragic mistake born of pride. Has it cost lives? It has.
Now this has been made clear, scientists who still want government sanction now say: "Mistakes may have been made, (I love the 'may') but this is not the time to go back over that. We need to focus minds on the things we must do now and not be distracted by that."
I am sure I heard a thunderous round of applause for that from Westminster and Whitehall. But it is another tragic mistake. There should be an immediate and high-ranking investation into what happened, what informed the decision to ignore WHO advice, and who make the decision. Instead of deciding not to be accountable because it might distract us from what we need to do next, let's face the truth, deal with it, and learn the lessons. It will be painful, but it will be cathartic.
If we do not learn from our mistakes and make it totally clear that it was a mistake, and make it even clearer how this mistake came about, we are doomed to repeat it. There will be many, many such moments in the coming weeks and months, where life and death decisions will be made. They must be made in the light of what we have learned, and we cannot learn anything if we do not examine where we went wrong. And urgently.
The government's decision to ignore WHO advice has cost lives. Do we want more lives needlessly lost? If so, carry on regardless. Don't learn from mistakes. Don't even acknowledge that there were mistakes. And above all, don't examine them for fear of being distracted from your next mistakes which you are bound to make. Why are we bound to make more mistakes? Because we are determined not to learn from the last ones.
Tragedy piled upon tragedy.
So this is what it's like to be in China.
It's horrible to have things drip-fed to you, information tightly controlled, released bit by bit lest you over-react (or react in a way that is determined by someone else to be detrimental to the state).
I think the time has come to sweep away the bollocks and talk straight. If you're the sort of person who doesn't like straight talking, (or feels it might be detrimental to the state) then don't read this. You have been warned.
There are a number of things that are under wraps. The government doesn't want you to be talking about them, or thinking that way, or any of that stuff. That's because they are not ready to talk about them, and would prefer not to.
A slew of interviews on the media (which I ration my consumption of) make it quite clear that Britain was unprepared for the pandemic despite the warnings of the World Health Organisation (WHO) which gave everyone plenty of time to get prepared. Even now, Britain is stumbling about trying to get some tests up and running with an ever increasing sense of desperation. At the same time they are pretending that Korea and Germany among many others who tested early and often, and still are, do not have a much lower death rate than we do. When WHO gave its advice on how to handle the virus outbreak, it said, inter alia: "Test, test, test." It was unequivocal, clear, direct and knowledgeable advice backed by science.
We didn't do it, and the hubris was palpable. It was a tragic mistake born of pride. Has it cost lives? It has.
Now this has been made clear, scientists who still want government sanction now say: "Mistakes may have been made, (I love the 'may') but this is not the time to go back over that. We need to focus minds on the things we must do now and not be distracted by that."
I am sure I heard a thunderous round of applause for that from Westminster and Whitehall. But it is another tragic mistake. There should be an immediate and high-ranking investation into what happened, what informed the decision to ignore WHO advice, and who make the decision. Instead of deciding not to be accountable because it might distract us from what we need to do next, let's face the truth, deal with it, and learn the lessons. It will be painful, but it will be cathartic.
If we do not learn from our mistakes and make it totally clear that it was a mistake, and make it even clearer how this mistake came about, we are doomed to repeat it. There will be many, many such moments in the coming weeks and months, where life and death decisions will be made. They must be made in the light of what we have learned, and we cannot learn anything if we do not examine where we went wrong. And urgently.
The government's decision to ignore WHO advice has cost lives. Do we want more lives needlessly lost? If so, carry on regardless. Don't learn from mistakes. Don't even acknowledge that there were mistakes. And above all, don't examine them for fear of being distracted from your next mistakes which you are bound to make. Why are we bound to make more mistakes? Because we are determined not to learn from the last ones.
Tragedy piled upon tragedy.
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