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Further to my recent posts on covid from the latest issue of New Scientist, on the subject of how many deaths are acceptable, it said -
"Opening up society will mean that more people will die from covid-19 than if restrictions remained. No country has explicitly said the level of covid-19 deaths it will tolerate, but some countries, such as New Zealand, have effectively decided to accept no infections or deaths, instead pursuing an elimination strategy.
Ministers have acknowledged that the ending of all covid-19 restrictions in England will lead to more deaths, but haven’t said how many are acceptable.
Modelling by Anne Cori at Imperial College London and her colleagues suggests there could be anything from 9400 to 113,000 deaths from covid-19 in England between 2 July 2021 and 1 June 2022, depending on how people behave and how well the vaccines work, but she stresses the uncertainties. “I would not emphasise any specific numbers,” says Cori.
Other modellers agree. “Forecasting death numbers is much more difficult than anything else,” says Matt Keeling at the University of Warwick, UK.
Even countries that have pursued an elimination strategy may be forced to tolerate waves of infections and deaths when they open up after vaccination campaigns are complete."
Just remember, as mum used to say, 'if it isn't clean enough to put in your mouth, don't bring it in the house'. Sage advice.
And I probably should have added that this is likely to be a renewal contract for an existing contingency plan, rather than an addition. So, as before, nothing to see.
Nothing should be read into this. All local authorities are required to have emergency planning contingency arrangements, be they for pandemics, floods, terrorism etc. The exact nature depends on the local authority and the potential risk involved. So really nothing to see here.
Yep agree Potnak - planning
The 32 individual borough councils of London thought that getting this procurement finalised was a smart move considering the central government had pre-announced the ‘freedom day’. They must not have as much confidence as the cabinet that things will be ok with opening up. An interesting requirement of the procurement was the ‘rapid deployment’ clause.........oh and the 4 year duration.
Fail to plan........plan to fail!!
GLA
Yes, just planning. Every local authority in the country will have to do some level of this. They did it pre Covid, probably not enough with hindsight. Years ago when I was still an IT engineer, I was doing some work on my local disaster planning department. Anyway, while I was there, someone walk in and turned on the TV as there was a news flash on TV. A dam had failed. Massive destruction and projected death toll. It was a couple of minutes before I realised it was an exercise. The news flash was professional, BBC, with BBC news readers doing it. The team then went into disaster mode. Really interesting to watch and they talked of getting the body bags out to the site and shipping the bodies to the temporary morgues. Not sure how many Sheffield has be there are thousands of body bags sat waiting for a disaster and there are buildings already earmarked to keep the bodies in. I believe large shopping centers/malls have to do the same.
Whatever the outcome of the tender you can rest assured it will be awarded to some crooked outfit with no experience who will proceed to rip off us taxpayers and make a cobblers of the whole thing. There is a precedent (or several) in
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57958178
Golden rule-keep politicians and taxpayers'money miles apart.
Nothing sinister or dodgy about the fact that U.K. gov is also stockpiling sedatives used in lethal injection- all the time in the knowledge that there are effective treatments out there.
https://pharmaceutical-journal.com/article/news/supplies-of-sedative-used-for-covid-19-patients-diverted-from-france-to-avoid-potential-shortages
Stoney although not doing the politics :) I concur with the clarification of this later post.
There are two govt strategy papers going back more than a decade…written first by Sir David King (marmite to some) who was asked to look at what was the greatest threat to the Uk…both set out what needed to be in place …I think it was in the event of a epidemic/pandemic and flooding … sticking with having resilience in place for a pandemic we have taken out eye of the ball… this paper set out what to do in the early onset stages, but being ill prepared, take the masks, we could put in place what was needed. I am hoping that our governments won’t in future be caught napping. Anyway have a good day.
Hi Cobradan - agree, it is a government’s responsibility to effectively plan.
Of interest, in this particular procurement (which to be honest you would have thought was already in place earlier in the pandemic) is the dates. Opened 12 June and Closed by 12 July with an award realistically not long after, oh just in time for lifting of all covid restrictions and preparedness for reaching ‘herd immunity’ before winter.
As per one of my earlier posts, Boris was asked directly “how many excess deaths did the modelling show by opening up all restrictions” - he did the typical politician answer by completely dodging the question. For balance, the same modelling has predicted some 100,000 cases per day should delta continue in the community unchecked.
Just saying as I don’t agree with the government decision to lift all restrictions too soon in its typical ‘flip flop’ chaotic way......stay safe
Therapeutics are needed - Gamma variant is on the way!
Stoney respectfully this is nothing new….my view is that is not a helpful post. Alarmist and raising a level of unnecessary fear.
The procurement of temporary facilities such as, industrial buildings, prefabricated type portakabins, fast repeatable modular construction and even the use of conference centres is an excepted fall back in the event of a significant occurrence that would put pressure on existing facilities. I would say that this resilience in the event of a significant event had lice the procurement and storage of PPE had lapsed. So this state of being prepared is necessary and welcomed.
Part of resilience that needs to be in place…. Let’s call it a state of readiness, preparing for the worst or would you rather we laid people out in the streets.
This is a “Normal” resilience planning of any governance… granted over last decades the eye of governments was taken off the ball.
Its purpose is to free room in hospital mortuaries so that there are no delays in storage when people die.
This resilience planning is not at all extraordinary, dates back over many years.
I reiterate an unhelpful post and not one anyone should concern themselves with…. there is a possibility of rain today so in order to be prepared, I might just take my coat. In the UK we have a big lead on this virus and as you know more positive therapeutics on the way.
Contract will probably go to Hanc0ck’s pub landlord again... you know the failed PPE contract where the publican bought a £1.3 million six-bed Manor House
On the first lockdown, there were rumours that the old GSK site in Harlow, Essex (part of it was to be sold to PHE) was being used for body storage for victims of Covid. Was general knowledge among the small businesses in the surrounding industrial site and also the traveller site adjacent to it
I’d be more interested in who the contract is going to…dodgy buggers
That cuts through all the noise around this.
A very worrying sign of things to come or at the least what is reasonably considered to be heading our way.
The pals & cronies won’t miss an opportunity to hoover up this money and are probably scouring Gumtree for old chest freezers.
Hi All - this is looking dodgy......
The local government in London, England (UK) is letting a Contract valued at £6 Million, for Temporary Dead Body Storage.
The Westminster City Council is seeking:
"The Authority seeks to procure a framework agreement for temporary body storage in the event of an excess deaths situation for the 32 London boroughs and the City of London, led by Westminster City Council. The framework agreement will appoint a single provider and will be for a period of 4 years. This will be a contingency contract, only called upon in the event that an excess deaths situation arises in the future and existing local body storage capacity needs to be augmented."
the Request for Bids also outlines:
"The over-arching aim of this tender is to provide a single framework supplier that will be able to provide temporary body storage facilities to house deceased in the event of an excess deaths situation. The deceased will be stored with dignity and respect, at locations to be determined based on local London needs at the time and will require some design elements to accommodate local site conditions and constraints, while being capable of rapid deployment, construction and commissioning to an agreed standard. This framework will be procured by the Authority as the pan-London lead, but all London local authorities may call-off against the framework.
Naturally, one wonders what "excess deaths situation" the London City government is anticipating? Oh, and why does the contractor need to be able to provide "rapid deployment?"
Below is a direct link to the actual London Tender Request on the official government web site.
If government is looking to spend money for "dead body storage" it is not unreasonable to think they KNOW something, or are planning something that will require that capacity.
https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/013120-2021?origin=SearchResults&p=1
Either way, this is a very bad sign. Stay safe