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UK Health Secretary talks nonsense

The UK government won't tell us who sits on the body advising them on how to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. It isn't surprising because what we do now know is that it lacks critical expertise in virology, immunology.

This lack of expertise certainly shows at the daily media briefings, which seem more to do with putting a government spin on stories than revealing what is happening. To the greatest extent, we are being kept in the dark.



Take today, for example. The Health Secretary Matt Hancock came up with this shockingly misleading statement. He told us that


“The UK has already gone past the number of tests per day for instance that they carry out in South Korea, we’re approaching the levels that Germany undertakes"

This just is not the case by any reading of the statistics.

The UK’s daily testing average over the past week has been just shy of 23,000 tests a day. Germany has been carrying out 450,000 tests a week, according to its foreign minister, equivalent to 64,000 a day. So, that is twice the level reached by the UK.


The comparison with South Korea is completely bonkers.

South Korea, has had a test, trace and treat strategy from the outset, and as a result, they reduced the number of infections and deaths. They now test just 10 a day because that is the number of new cases per day. Let's look at the comparison


South Korea as of today:


Coronavirus Cases:
10,738
Deaths:
243
Recovered:
8,764


The UK as of today


Coronavirus Cases:
157,149
Deaths:
21,092 (Hospital deaths)
Recovered:
N/A


The UK doesn't know how many cases it has, nor how many deaths.  The UK government was late to act and have been ineffective in the action needed. We needed a test, trace and treat strategy.

The UK government can't even sort out testing properly nor PPE for our frontline staff. To compare us with South Korea simply serves to show how divorced from reality they have become.  

There have been so many missed opportunities.  There is only one way to describe the UK government approach: incompetent. 




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