Coronavirus

[Angry Ram]

17 minutes ago, ariotofmyown said:

They could have put a quick call out to companies who procure medical equipment and gear, and made a decision based on what the companies could quickly acquire.

They seemed to have phone some mates who had no background in medical procurement and just given them millions to try and sort it out.

I'm not sure that old Etonians and toffs are the best sort of people for this line of work.

Was not really an option at the time though was it? ‘Put out to tender’ was the comment. That takes time and a lot of it. The situation was that the whole world was looking for PPE and it was needed there and then. I am sure those companies you mentioned were contacted but that would have been nowhere near enough. 

People are quick to put their Captain Hindsight gear on though. Yeah I would have done this and that blah, blah, blah.

[GboroRam]

10 hours ago, EtoileSportiveDeDerby said:

In terms of technolgy XLS might predate Jesus.

This being said If they had used XLS from what i gather they would have been alright instead they used CSV (comma seaparated values) and this technology was around when dinausors roam this earth. Bring back the abacus.

 

 

[Shuff264]

10 hours ago, EtoileSportiveDeDerby said:

In terms of technolgy XLS might predate Jesus.

This being said If they had used XLS from what i gather they would have been alright instead they used CSV (comma seaparated values) and this technology was around when dinausors roam this earth. Bring back the abacus.

 

 

CSV has been around for all time as its a great data file format, so fixed field lengths just easily interpreted seperation.

The problem was the conversion to XLS which has a much lower row limit than more modern excel file types.

I dont know why they even needed to do this conversion, just pump the csv data straight up.

[GboroRam]

Just now, Shuff264 said:

CSV has been around for all time as its a great data file format, so fixed field lengths just easily interpreted seperation.

The problem was the conversion to XLS which has a much lower row limit than more modern excel file types.

I dont know why they even needed to do this conversion, just pump the csv data straight up.

It does feel a bit like the work experience lad was given the job of inputting the data.

[ariotofmyown]

47 minutes ago, Angry Ram said:

Was not really an option at the time though was it? ‘Put out to tender’ was the comment. That takes time and a lot of it. The situation was that the whole world was looking for PPE and it was needed there and then. I am sure those companies you mentioned were contacted but that would have been nowhere near enough. 

People are quick to put their Captain Hindsight gear on though. Yeah I would have done this and that blah, blah, blah.

You would hope that there are streamlined emergency tender processes to use within a crisis. A couple of days to check the suppliers know what they are doing is surely preferable to immediately taking on people with literally no experience.

Once these charlatans had secured the government contract, they probably then had to start their own process to source the equipment. Surely the government already has departments to do this sort if thing and not everything has to go private so a middleman can take a cut?

[Angry Ram]

3 minutes ago, ariotofmyown said:

You would hope that there are streamlined emergency tender processes to use within a crisis. A couple of days to check the suppliers know what they are doing is surely preferable to immediately taking on people with literally no experience.

Once these charlatans had secured the government contract, they probably then had to start their own process to source the equipment. Surely the government already has departments to do this sort if thing and not everything has to go private so a middleman can take a cut?

In an ideal world, maybe. It is obvious that the world was not ready for this, not just us but numerous countries. We can't deny the fact that we had not prepared properly for this but again hindsight is in play. The fact was nobody really was, so the situation was what is was. So how does this fantastic super speed tender programme work with the actual facts and situation at the time? Weeks and weeks would have been lost, no PPE of any sort, the country baying for blood, MSM baying for blood. What would you do? You would source what you can from where you can and quickly. Not ideal but what other choices did they have? Let people die? No win.

[Chester40]

1 hour ago, ariotofmyown said:

 

They seemed to have phone some mates who had no background in medical procurement and just given them millions to try and sort it out.

I'm not sure that old Etonians and toffs are the best sort of people for this line of work.

Corbyn would have been so much better. Spending weeks meeting with unions and arguing what rate of overtime would not be too unacceptable. 

[Stive Pesley]

1 hour ago, Angry Ram said:

People are quick to put their Captain Hindsight gear on though.

Who would win in a fight? Captain Hindsight or Devil's Advocate-man?

 

[Eddie]

8 hours ago, jimmyp said:

Yes I can imagine that when every country in the world wants to buy exactly the same thing at exactly the same time, the price will rocket. Undoubtedly we have paid over the odds for certain products / services, show me a government that hasn’t.

 

8 hours ago, Eddie said:

So why, in the post I quoted, were you only referencing the procurement of PPE? 

Strawmen don't construct themselves.

 

8 hours ago, jimmyp said:

I wasn’t referencing the procurement of PPE, I was referencing the cost of test and trace.

 

So it was how much we were charged for NHS Test and Trace that was troubling you.?

It cost in the order of £25 million to develop by NHSX (with an integral application process interface being developed by Apple and Google, and about £10 million for the aborted first attempt). I stress the word 'develop' - it wasn't bought 'off the shelf', there wasn't a finite number of 'test and trace' apps available to purchase 'off the shelf', so the laws of supply and demand don't apply here.

 

[jimmyp]

4 minutes ago, Eddie said:

 

 

So it was how much we were charged for NHS Test and Trace that was troubling you.?

It cost in the order of £25 million to develop by NHSX (with an integral application process interface being developed by Apple and Google, and about £10 million for the aborted first attempt). I stress the word 'develop' - it wasn't bought 'off the shelf', there wasn't a finite number of 'test and trace' apps available to purchase 'off the shelf', so the laws of supply and demand don't apply here.

 

The budget for test and trace doesn’t just include purchasing / developing the app. 

Surely the  laws of supply and demand would have applied when every country in the world was buying tests at the same time?

 

[Eddie]

33 minutes ago, Chester40 said:

Corbyn would have been so much better. Spending weeks meeting with unions and arguing what rate of overtime would not be too unacceptable. 

This is what everything always boils down to with so many people when there is tacit disapproval mooted by anyone - it doesn't even need to be openly expressed - regarding any action taken by one party or other regarding anything. "The other lot would have been worse because a b c x y z".

It's why there can never be any accountability any more, and why politics has descended to the level of football fans. It's a team game, and Derby are always better than Forest (well, that's true anyway).

[Eddie]

Just now, jimmyp said:

The budget for test and trace doesn’t just include purchasing / developing the app. 

Surely the  laws of supply and demand would have applied when every country in the world was buying tests at the same time?

 

Ah, right, I've got you.

I'm not sure that 'supply and demand' (and the implied ramping up of prices) would or even could have applied.

[Angry Ram]

52 minutes ago, SchtivePesley said:

Who would win in a fight? Captain Hindsight or Devil's Advocate-man?

 

On here, Captain Hindsight. Numbers count.

[GboroRam]

1 hour ago, Angry Ram said:

In an ideal world, maybe. It is obvious that the world was not ready for this, not just us but numerous countries. We can't deny the fact that we had not prepared properly for this but again hindsight is in play. The fact was nobody really was, so the situation was what is was. So how does this fantastic super speed tender programme work with the actual facts and situation at the time? Weeks and weeks would have been lost, no PPE of any sort, the country baying for blood, MSM baying for blood. What would you do? You would source what you can from where you can and quickly. Not ideal but what other choices did they have? Let people die? No win.

Do you believe there is no emergency procurement procedure that would apply?

[jimmyp]

57 minutes ago, GboroRam said:

Do you believe there is no emergency procurement procedure that would apply?

We used the emergency procurement procedure didn’t we?

(1) There are genuine reasons for extreme urgency, eg:

you need to respond to the COVID-19 consequences immediately because of public health risks, loss of existing provision at short notice, etc;

you are reacting to a current situation that is a genuine emergency - not planning for one.

2) The events that have led to the need for extreme urgency were unforeseeable, eg:

the COVID-19 situation is so novel that the consequences are not something you should have predicted.

3) It is impossible to comply with the usual timescales in the PCRs, eg:

there is no time to run an accelerated procurement under the open or restricted procedures or competitive procedures with negotiation;

there is no time to place a call off contract under an existing commercial agreement such as a framework or dynamic purchasing system.

4) The situation is not attributable to the contracting authority, eg:

you have not done anything to cause or contribute to the need for extreme urgency.)

 

 

[Eddie]

How emergency procurement appears to work...

1. Crisis ensues

2. Make phone call to friend

3. Friend forms company

4. Give contract to friend

5. Profit.

[Gone]

Across 50 campuses in the United States, there were 69,444 PCR positives with three requiring hospitalisation. Thankfully none of these students died. We are seeing the same here as well 

[Shuff264]

17 minutes ago, TexasRam said:

Across 50 campuses in the United States, there were 69,444 PCR positives with three requiring hospitalisation. Thankfully none of these students died. We are seeing the same here as well 

Hopefully mate, if so cases should decline as herd immunity builds up within university groups and we shouldn't see a drastic up tick in hospitalisations. 

But we wait and see....

[Stive Pesley]

I guess it's just nice to see Nottingham surge up the table

[ramit]

We are getting an explosion of new cases here recently, 99 new today, thankfully few are in hospital.  Pubs and restaurants are kept open, as well as many other close proximity establishments.  The RT factor is 2.5, that's quite high.  It's like there is no urgency to get a grip on this thing.  i find it hard to believe that authorities are that incompetent, it's like it's on purpose.