02-03-2022, 09:47 AM
I think boards and managers are always overly optimistic about what their minions can achieve. The health sector was understaffed long before covid and now have to cope with it on top of everything else and mainly have done a miraculous job in doing so. Bloomfiled is one of said managers, but still has to live with what he has been given, and I forgive him for trying to keep the positive tone when things really are looking bad. As Olive said, he's done a great job at the head of the best covid response in the world, at times stuck in the hardest place between politics and practicality.
I can see that the process of pooling tests fell over when numbers got big. When only a few batches had to be separated and re-done because there was one positive result in the batch it was efficient and worked well. Then suddenly they would have had a high proportion of pooled batches with at least one positive (maybe it's now all) so it's understandable that having to now pretty much do every result individually would have had a huge impact on capacity.
It's tough for people waiting for results, but they need to assume that if they have symptoms, they have covid and stay at home. Some will find they just have a cold - stay at home anyway whatever you are sick with. For everyone else, if out in public, act as if everyone you encounter could infect you, because they could. Within a few days we will all have RATs available. That has been where the government really got it wrong. We should have had them weeks ago, and the commandeering of orders from companies that had bought them in time to keep supply chains going now is probably the biggest problem we are facing right now.
I can see that the process of pooling tests fell over when numbers got big. When only a few batches had to be separated and re-done because there was one positive result in the batch it was efficient and worked well. Then suddenly they would have had a high proportion of pooled batches with at least one positive (maybe it's now all) so it's understandable that having to now pretty much do every result individually would have had a huge impact on capacity.
It's tough for people waiting for results, but they need to assume that if they have symptoms, they have covid and stay at home. Some will find they just have a cold - stay at home anyway whatever you are sick with. For everyone else, if out in public, act as if everyone you encounter could infect you, because they could. Within a few days we will all have RATs available. That has been where the government really got it wrong. We should have had them weeks ago, and the commandeering of orders from companies that had bought them in time to keep supply chains going now is probably the biggest problem we are facing right now.