Summary:
1. The use of data as a power tool has prevented us from controlling the spread of COVID-19 through our communities and is even more of a threat now that lockdown restrictions are being eased. https://twitter.com/randombigbird/status/1278989217767579648">https://twitter.com/randombig...
1. The use of data as a power tool has prevented us from controlling the spread of COVID-19 through our communities and is even more of a threat now that lockdown restrictions are being eased. https://twitter.com/randombigbird/status/1278989217767579648">https://twitter.com/randombig...
2. ...the usual system of reporting a notifiable disease ...had been turned on its head. Usually, if a person was found to have smallpox or Legionnaireâs disease, they would be diagnosed by their GP who has a âstatutory dutyâ to notify the âproper officerâ at their local council.
3. ...for COVID-19, GPs have been sidelined ...In this way, the Government has taken control of the data on the pandemic and deprived local public health and primary care teams the crucial tool required to protect communities from a dangerous and highly contagious disease.
4. Was this driven by an ideological loathing for local government; a Big Data driven obsession with knowledge as power; or a desire to hand lucrative data management contracts to private companies? âŠ
5. ...it has left the country â as it emerges from protective isolation â groping in the dark for any sense of how safe we are...Originally, we were flying blind because of the Governmentâs inexplicable decision to stop mass testing.
6. Now, public health teams are flying according to the wrong maps, operating with only partial data and often without sight of the true case numbers... Coronavirus tests were only available in hospitals and for medical staff.
7. These were the âpillar 1â tests. âPillar 2â tests were the ones undertaken at drive-through centres or by post as testing was âramped upâ...the official data only includes âpillar 1â tests.
8. This explains why public health officials in Leicester were only aware of a small proportion of active cases in their community until days before the area was forced to go back into lockdown.
9. Questions should also be raised about whether the real motivation for keeping this vital information secret is because it might allow journalists to work backwards to fill in the blanks in the data table about how many people have actually been tested.
10. ...without this data, none of us can make âcommon senseâ decisions about where we should go, what we should do, and with whom. We have no accurate data on which to base our decisions and calculate our risks.
11. For this Government, data is a political weapon not a tool to guide policy.
My comment: Covid19 exposes populist government for what they are. A bunch of slogans and no science based policies. I think our governments have found that only by hiding the data, they can cover ...
My comment: Covid19 exposes populist government for what they are. A bunch of slogans and no science based policies. I think our governments have found that only by hiding the data, they can cover ...