UK Covid-19 Inquiry finds early pandemic surveillance was weeks out of date

During the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK, it took up to three weeks for confirmed cases to be recorded on the health database used at the time. The two-volume report into the second set of UK Covid-19 Inquiry hearings found that data collection for the systematic NHS surveillance of the virus became available …

[Anonymous Coward]

Scamdemic

The whole thing was a scam, not that many people will admit that because they either made lots of money, don't want to feel foolish or have political capital invested. If anyone bothered to track the data early on they would've realised. Probably the biggest scam ever and one which killed people unecessarily. But no doubt there will be lots of downvotes by people who did not track the raw data and believed the BBC and other vultures. Well if you're in that camp you are probably being taken in by other psycho manipulations. I can't wait for the aliens are attacking one which seems to be buidling up but is still lacking believers currently.

Here's a tip for those wanting a long and healthy life: Don't believe what they say on the news, eat healthy food without chemical additives, go outside, exercise, be very secptical of anyone claiming to care about you that isn't related.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Scamdemic

PS yes there was a disease, yes it did kill. Nearly always people that had some weakness, either age or health but numbers showed it was of the magnitude of bad flu years. Despite claims, Swedish stats were similar to everyone elses. The interventions made it worse not better.

[abend0c4]

Re: Scamdemic

numbers showed it was of the magnitude of bad flu years

If you pick your "bad flu year" as 1918, then influenza killed roughly twice as many people in the USA (per head of population) as Covid did in the following century. If you pick 2017-2018, which was considered an unusually bad year for flu compared to the average, around 50,000 US deaths were attributed to influenza. In 2020 and 2021, around 500,000 US deaths per year were attributed to Covid - an order of magnitude more.

In the absence of numbers, words like "bad" are meaningless.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Scamdemic

"numbers showed it was of the magnitude of bad flu years"

The "bad flu years" immediately following WWI killed more people than the war had done.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Scamdemic

> "bad flu years" immediately following WWI killed more people than the war

So we need better machine guns?

[graeme leggett]

Re: Scamdemic

Swedish stats were worse than neighbouring Denmark and Norway. It was not the advertisement for a laissez faire approach that the conspiracy mongers like to make out.

The mass preventative quarantine that was lockdown worked, it was not perfect (but perfect is the enemy of 'good enough') and future planning should balance preventing infection with the negative effects we know understand better

[Steve Button]

Re: Scamdemic

Have you looked at the stats recently? I know Sweden fared worse in the short term, but a bit better after a couple of years compared to their neighbours.

https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/34/4/737/7675929

[graeme leggett]

Re: Scamdemic

Interesting.

The same authors considered non-Covid deaths.

"The excess mortality due to cardiovascular diseases was particularly pronounced in Finland and Norway in 2022, and the under-mortality due to dementia was particularly pronounced in Sweden in 2021–2022. In conclusion, while COVID-19 deaths emerge as the most apparent consequence of the pandemic, our findings suggest that mortality has also been influenced by substitutions between different causes of death and over time, as well as indirect consequences of COVID-19 infection and pandemic responses—albeit to different extents in the different countries."

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-024-01154-0

One layman interpretation is that Sweden failed to protect its more vulnerable citizens while the other countries did but when the other countries removed the protection they ended up in same place as Sweden.

[Steve Button]

Re: Scamdemic

Doesn't that kind of suggest that The Great Barrington Declaration was right all along? Shield the elderly & vulnerable, but allow society to continue pretty much as normal.

Also bear in mind it's not just about lives lost. If an 86 year old dies with Covid they might have only had one or two years left anyway. If a 20 year old dies because of the impacts of lockdown, they could well have lost 60+ years. That's why the concept of Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY) is important here.

One thing I think most people agree with is that many countries, including both Sweden and the UK, failed it's older people very badly by releasing people from hospitals back into care homes without any testing.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Scamdemic

If a 20 year old dies because of the impacts of lockdown COVID, they could well have lost 60+ years.

In the absence of evidence that is the cautious line of thinking and it's the nature of novel pandemics that you don't have evidence and caution is in order.

It's one thing to review matters with hindsight but you also need to review them from the standpoint of what was known at the time.

Hindsight tells us that we were ill-prepared. We could also have been even worse prepared in that the techniques needed to produce vaccines at the speed they were produced was only recently available. Hindsight should also tell us it was significant that some Chinese workers got the genome sequence out at the beginning of the year; a secretive county like China could very easily have clamped down on it and delayed vaccine production by several weeks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Scamdemic

"In the absence of evidence that is the cautious line of thinking and it's the nature of novel pandemics that you don't have evidence and caution is in order."

That's why you have an established pandemic plan for influenza (which also applies to similar illnesses). The UK did have one of these, and completely ignored it in 2020.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Scamdemic

A plan for an epidemic of an existing illness for which many have at least partial immunity from existing exposure or vaccination is going to be bugger all use against a novel infection against which there is no existing immunity and very little data as to its severity or rapidity of spread, especially when such data as does exist suggest it is very bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Scamdemic

No, the plan has to take that into account as there can be particularly bad strains of influeza which are sufficiently different that there is little prior immunity. The plans are based on what is actually demonstrated to work when dealing with respiratory viruses, rather than on 'something must be done, even if it's useless and causes massive problems'.

[Adair]

Re: Scamdemic

But it wasn't Influenza, AND even the plans that were in place for an influenza epidemic had, in physical resource terms, been run into the ground over years, so 'the plan' couldn't be effectively implemented even if they tried to. Which, by all accounts they did try, only to discover the shocking truth that when you don't fund a plan for the physical resources it requires you don't actually have 'a plan'. Makes you wonder what other 'plans' are lurking in draws which, when needed, will be found to be figments of imagination.

[jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid]

Re: Scamdemic

"That's why you have an established pandemic plan for influenza (which also applies to similar illnesses). The UK did have one of these, and completely ignored it in 2020."

I remember watching Chris Whitty giving evidence to the inquiry on this. He said that as soon as they looked at the flu pandemic plan, they realised it was not suitable for COVID. He also said that any COVID preparedness plan was unlikely to have been the right one for whatever the situation was at the time, given all the possible variations and complications. Better he said, to have a well resourced capability in place, able to be agile and responsive - something we also didn't have and given the cost of maintaining such a thing, probably unlikely to ever have.

[Steve Button]

Re: Scamdemic

We did indeed have a plan but Dominic Cummings was convinced he knew better and therefore tore it up. We'll never really know what would have happened if we'd stuck to that pan. Perhaps more like Sweden or perhaps worse. It's hard to guess really. If there were ten Swedens then it might be clearer but they went it alone.

Also Boris was scared into full lockdown by the unions threatening to strike and by others in his cabinet+ the media "why didn't you lock down sooner prime minister?". Also by labour who wanted to lock down harder.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Scamdemic

"Boris was scared into full lockdown by the unions threatening to strike".

Bullshit! The unions didn't threaten to strike.

During the pandemic Boris was changing his mind about everything, sometimes a few times a day. That's why civil servants compared his behaviour then to an out of control shopping trolley..

[Roland6]

Re: Scamdemic

The influenza plan, like much before COVID-19, contained a core assumption: people show symptoms before they become contagious, with COVID the reverse was true.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hindsight tells us that we were ill-prepared.

That's not true. We knew before Covid that we were not prepared for a pandemic. The then government chose to ignore the findings of Operation Cygnus(?), an exercise that tested our ability to handle a pandemic a couple of years before the shit-show started.

[thames]

Re: Scamdemic

All the "Great Barrington Declaration" (which few people who like to cite it ever bothered to read) said was that they didn't like the pandemic and they wanted someone to just make it all go away somehow. It was a list of grievances with no actual practical proposals for any alternatives. They said that coming with ways of making their "plan" work was someone else's responsibility, they were just the ideas people.

The IT equivalent to the "Great Barrington Declaration" would be for users to say that usernames and passwords are too much bother and they should be gotten rid of. What, security? That's IT's problem. It's up to them to figure something else out.

[Steve Button]

Re: Scamdemic

Wrong on both counts. 1) they suggested to shield the vulnerable. 2) usernames and passwords ARE a bad idea.

[thames]

Re: Scamdemic

"Shield the vulnerable" wow, how insightful, especially as everybody was considered vulnerable.

The IT department could prevent all IT security problems by simply closing all security vulnerabilities instead of telling users to not click on dodgy email attachments. Now why did they need me to tell them that? What utter fools they are! I call this The Great Blackpool Declaration". Make sure to cite it as the answer to any and all security problems whenever another IT security story is posted.

[ptribble]

Re: Scamdemic

With colossal global interventions Covid was about 10x worse than a bad flu year. Without those interventions it could easily have been an order of magnitude worse again.

[Steve Button]

Re: Scamdemic

That word "could" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

I *could* have won the lottery last week. It's very unlikely though, but it could have happened.

Sweden fared pretty well after a couple of years compared to neighbouring countries.

Also, Christmas 2021 when many many people were screaming that we must lock down again or we'll have huge excess deaths. Were you one of those people? We didn't lock down. The wave peaked and then went away, just like all the other ones did.

Can you supply some evidence to back your assertion, or just a gut feeling?

[thames]

Re: Scamdemic

Sweden eventually admitted that the "Swedish approach" was an utter failure and implemented pandemic restrictions. The Sweden that did nothing and was just fine existed only in the imaginations of certain people.

[Roland6]

Re: Scamdemic

> Can you supply some evidence to back your assertion, or just a gut feeling?

There were a several reports from countries which did nothing (and had no effective medical service) when COVID swept through an entire community/village…

The UK survived COVID in part because our distribution system continued to work and so there was food and medicines in the shops, and neighbours were able to deliver food to those unable to get out the house.I had friends who liked doing Iron man, who were laid flat by COVID, it took one 6 weeks before they were able to walk to their local shop… “the vulnerable” weren’t just those in care homes… They survived because of their neighbours.

[Like a badger]

Re: Scamdemic

With colossal global interventions Covid was about 10x worse than a bad flu year. Without those interventions it could easily have been an order of magnitude worse again.

As it was in countries that didn't have the infrastructure to do anything about it. India typically suffers 15-25k influenza deaths per year, COVID killed (by any halfway credible analysis) around 5m, maybe even 7m. On which basis, even doubling the flu deaths and taking the lower estimate of COVID deaths indicates that without interventions COVID mortality was indeed two orders of magnitude worse than seasonal flu.

[Tom66]

Re: Scamdemic

It's worth noting that there were differences in genetics and social situation which determined the impact of COVID. In particular, even adjusting for the social inequality between groups, black and south east Asian groups suffered more from the impacts of COVID than white British groups. The reason is not well understood but may be down to variations in the spike protein receptor or due to prior flu strains which conveyed immunity in some populations, as well as overall health and economic position which makes it more likely that an infection will occur and that it will be fatal.

https://www.ifs.org.uk/inequality/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Are-some-ethnic-groups-more-vulnerable-to-COVID-19-than-others-V2-IFS-Briefing-Note.pdf

Another oddity from the pandemic is that smokers were slightly less likely to die as a result of COVID; the impact was not hugely significant (a few percent), but it shows how variable the disease could be. The thought was that the already damaged lung tissue would be less likely to lead to the cytokine storm in the respiratory system which often led to respiratory failure and death.

Other comorbidities included obesity, diabetes and lung disease (which possibly explains why the USA was hit badly, along with the variable approach between states which meant infection control was quite poor despite what individual states desired).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Scamdemic

> The reason is not well understood

The reason was obvious, look at professions and work and living circumstances.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Scamdemic

Anon,

You're flat wrong about the numbers. As others have stated - unless you count 1918 as your "bad flu year", in which case you're a fool.j

It is also true that lots of people died "with Covid" - i.e. they were busy dying of something else and got Covid which finished them off. But you can't necessarily say that they padded-out the death figures, because many of them had a short while left to live - which they could have spent with their loved ones. It's actually rather nice to have the chance to talk to the people you love before they die - rather than the alternative of them going with unfinished business - or just not getting the chance because they die suddenly.

Plus many people with chronic illnesses, would have lived reasonably happy and fulfilled lives for years to come who died of Covid instead. And their lives have actual meaning. If you're going to argue that Covid was little worse than flu - that argument totally fails because Covid killed an order of magnitude more people than a bad flu year (discounting major pandemics). Also because bad flu years do exactly the same thing. i.e. Bad flu years mostly shorten the lives of people who are already terminally or chronically ill. So if you're going to discount those numbers from the Covid stats, you have to do exactly the same thing from the Flu stats.

The best solution to both is better vaccines.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The best solution to both is better vaccines

That will not go down well in Trumpistan especially with RFK jnr making decisions about vaccines. They've just marked the MMR jab as causing autism. Yes, that old cherry is alive and kicking.

I can remember my grandfather talking about WW1 and Spanish Flu. He was gassed and taken prisoner at the Somme. He spent 3 years working in a salt mine and returned in 1919 with the Flu.

He was 21 years old and never worked another day in his life. His lung capacity was around 10% of a healthy person.

There are long covid sufferers with terrible lung problems even today.

My Granddaughter has had COVID four times but she is an A&E Doctor. to her, and thanks to vaccines it is no worse than a cold but she sees people die from it almost every week.

[HereIAmJH]

Re: The best solution to both is better vaccines

That will not go down well in Trumpistan especially with RFK jnr making decisions about vaccines.

We're taking the 'if I don't see it, it didn't happen' approach. And 'lalalalala' don't tell me what I don't want to hear.

And to make sure the bad news doesn't make it to the public, we're dismantling the CDC and there will be no resources available to react anyway. COVID could have been less deadly in the US if the gov't had started preparations when they knew it was coming. But they waited 3 months hoping it would go away because it was an election year. Just stocking up on masks would have helped. And pulling all of the emergency ventilators out of storage and recertifying them.

When the next pandemic comes along, and there will be one, you'll just have to quarantine us until we reach herd immunity.

[Steve Button]

Re: Scamdemic

When you say scam it sounds like you are suggesting a conspiracy. Looking at the evidence it looks more like a cock-up.

[Bebu sa Ware]

Re: Scamdemic

suggesting a conspiracy. Looking at the evidence it looks more like a cock-up. ✓

The clowns in the Boris Johnson circus were congenitally incapable of anything approaching a credible conspiracy.

Very definitely and unmistakably a cock·up,

"Eat Out, To Help Out" — Bloody brilliant ! Insipred lunacy. /s But conspiracy ? I think perhaps not.

[Aladdin Sane]

Re: Scamdemic

Eat Out To Help Out was promoted as helping a weak pound, which I often find to be true.

[Roland6]

Re: Scamdemic

> "Eat Out, To Help Out"

Agree with the brilliance. I am a little surprised those calling for reduce VAT etc for cafes and restaurants aren’t calling for it. The problems in the restaurant trade are due to lack of foot fall because people are watching their spend.

[Zolko]

Re: Scamdemic

it was a conspiracy. If you want to see the proof of it, look and what the financial markets did the 4 weeks before the beginnings of the worldwide lockdowns and what happened the exact day when the lockdowns were announced.

HINT : the financial markets were in meltdown since mid-february 2020 because OPEC+ (mainly Russia and Saudi Arabia) refused to lower their petrol production, putting strains on US shale-oil producers who were all loosing money, putting pressure on margin-calls of the main investment firms. Meltdown beeing : all financial markets were down 40% in 4 weeks, something never seen ever, not even in 1929 or 2008. And when the lockdowns and subsequent saving of the real economy – because lockdowns – with helicopter money was announced on the week-end of 16th march, miracle : the financial markets recovered all their losses.

If it was a conspiracy, you have to ask cui bono : and you'll get the same usual suspects, the banksters.

[MrMerrymaker]

Re: Scamdemic

You're insane, conspiracy dude

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Scamdemic

It looks like a bad case of survivor bias.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Scamdemic

Oh dear, where to start with this...

Markets fell in late Feb 2020 primarily because of Covid. In the last few days of Feb, it was clear that the outbreak was spreading outside of Chine. The impact on China alone would have been sufficient to depress demand for oil and hence triggering falls in the price of oil. With outbreaks clearly happening on a worldwide basis, of course oil prices dropped for just about every reason from expected drop in tourism, to factory output, to supply chain problems.

To suggest that the stock market turbulence was to do with anything other than Covid and that Covid was... well I'm not even sure what you're suggesting, are you going to claim it was fake, or created by the banks or... just shows your level of paranoia or irrational belief in conspiracy theories.

[thames]

Re: Scamdemic

So the financial markets saw the pandemic spreading and knew it was going to be really bad? Well, so did everybody else who wasn't hiding their heads under the covers and hoping it would just all go away somehow.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Scamdemic

Unfortunately, as this post illustrates, repeated Covid infections cause lasting neurological damage which those impacted do not appear to notice, although the loss of capacity is clear to the people around them/reading their words on the internet.

[John 110]

Re: Scamdemic

If you hadn't posted anon, then you could have used the joke icon.I'll put here for you.

[thames]

Re: Scamdemic

And here's another tip. Never, ever, believe anything posted by an "Anonymous Coward".

[jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid]

Re: Scamdemic

"Never, ever, believe anything posted by an "Anonymous Coward'."

That's unfair. Some of us participate here just for the fun, and don't want to put our real names on the internet.

(by "anonymous coward" I presume you mean any pseudonym, rather than that particular default handle)

[Roland6]

Re: Scamdemic

>” That's unfair. Some of us participate here just for the fun, and don't want to put our real names on the internet.”

I suspect your ElReg handle isn’t your real name…

Agree there are times where you may wish to say something potentially inflammatory or personally identifiable, that you don’t want to be directly/publically linked to your normal handle.

[Primus Secundus Tertius]

Wasting my taxes

The health world is full of busybodies who want to spend my taxes on more committees and more statistics. None of these will make actual people actually better. Then they will claim that because things are not getting better they are getting worse, and will demand even more of my taxes.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Wasting my taxes

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Public health and its statistical approach is about prevention.

If you catch a disease the treatment to cure it may or may not be available depending on what you caught.

If you catch a disease for which a treatment is available it may or may not cure it because treatments don't always work, they may be given too late, etc.

If you don't catch a disease you don't catch a disease. This is preferable to relying on treatment.

[Steve Button]

Re: Wasting my taxes

So, Doctor if I go to my GP and ask them about prevention will they give me the time of day?

[Ochib]

Re: Wasting my taxes

Yes, GPs are referring people to gyms ( GP Exercise Referral Scheme) to help with medical conditions like diabetes.

As if you have prediabetes, it's better to loose weight than wait until you have diabetes and then need medical intervention

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Wasting my taxes

Yes. GPs have been giving vaccinations for generations. That's prevention. I've also been given a prescription for keratosis to prevent it becoming cancerous. When I was very young my doctor sent me for an appendectomy to prevent appendicitis from killing me.

But on the larger scale public health, relying on statistics, has been saving lives by preventative measures ever since John Snow removed the handle from the Broad Street pump.

[Aladdin Sane]

Re: Wasting my taxes

Dunno, it's a bit late for your dad to wear a condom.

[thames]

Re: Wasting my taxes

Yes, your doctor will tell you to stop smoking, lose weight, take up exercise, and get all your vaccination jabs. He'll probably tell you to do that without you even having to ask.

[abend0c4]

Re: Wasting my taxes

Evidence-based medicine is still a relatively novel concept, but it's statistics that prevent your taxes being wasted on the routine removal of tonsils and adenoids and a whole bunch of other procedures that doctors, left to their own devices, would have continued to favour.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Wasting my taxes

Allowing regular scans for Breast Cancer, but not for Prostate Cancer.

Plenty of evidence out there but the dodgy PSA test is used as a smoke screen.

[Roland6]

Re: Wasting my taxes

Or in more extreme cases discrediting some widely used psychiatric procedures like electric shock therapy and lobotomies…

[Anonymous Coward]

> full of busybodies

This. Laziness is too common.

Managers are equivalent of ancient slave drivers. Else people stop working. A whip is the basis of capitalism.

For those who disagree, here is a 100%-liked comment from another thread: "Surely the aim of a civilised person is to work as little as possible" --- https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2025/11/24/asia_tech_news_roundup/

[MrMerrymaker]

Re: Wasting my taxes

Wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to be clear

Anti-vaxxers are scientifically ignorant and should be roundly ignored.

Thanks.

[Bebu sa Ware]

Re: Just to be clear

Anti-vaxxers are scientifically ignorant and should be roundly ignored.

I would have gone for thrashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Just to be clear

So you advocate violence against people who disagree with you?

[LogicGate]

Re: Just to be clear

Not for violence, but anti-vaxers do more than disagree with you.

They put their own children in mortal danger.

They also carry diseases to those that immuno-compromised. People that would otherwise be protected by herd immunity.

Anti-vaxers do real damage, and should be treated as such.

Your kid is not immunized? Good luck with the home-schooling.

Your kid is not immunized? I am terribly sorry, but your little plague vector is not allowed into our waiting room.

Your parents prevented your vaccination, and you got a cold? Please call 18900-next-gen-ambulance-chasers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Just to be clear

So, ALL vaccines are always good? How do you define anti-vaxxer?

If you have questions about the efficacy of certain vaccines compared to the side-effect risk, does that make you an anti-vaxxer?

[Like a badger]

Re: Just to be clear

If you have questions about the efficacy of certain vaccines compared to the side-effect risk, does that make you an anti-vaxxer?

Depends. If by "have questions" you mean "reject the overwhelming majority of established medical evidence and opinion", then the answer is probably yes.

It is possible to reasonably ask questions about benefits and side effects, and occurrence rates, and conclude that you don't want a particular vaccine without being and anti-vaxxer, but anecdotal observation suggests that's a VERY small group.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Just to be clear

And of course, the 'established medical evidence' has been developed using a strictly even playing field, hasn't it? Good job there hasn't been massive pharma cash put into influencing the medical profession and politicians, and that the trials are never in any way biased, and anyone who disagrees is given a fair hearing (as opposed to screaming 'anti-vaxxer' at them)...

[LogicGate]

Re: Just to be clear

Anti vaxers are getting a "fair hearing" in the current US administration.

It is a shitshow and it will cost many lives.

Just like the NRA on jan.6 proved that the guns they need to protect are not there to prevent a violent overthrow of the US democracy, anti vaxers are now proving that there is nothing behind them but snake-oil.

[MrMerrymaker]

Re: Just to be clear

By nature yes a working vaccine is good

[Roland6]

Re: Just to be clear

If you have actually taken the time to do the background reading, you are unlikely to be an anti-vaxxer.

We saw this with respect to MMR, the anti-vaxxers opted out totally, sensible people who believed in vaccination, yet had concerns because of the claims being made, got their children single vaccines at £100~140 a jab (6 jabs for a complete course).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Just to be clear

FFS!

Beliefs are underpinned by ignorance and superstition. They are not supported by evidence-based facts. Vaccinations are. People don't believe in vaccination. They either accept or reject the scientific evidence that vaccines work.

Those who chose discrete vaccinations over MMR were not sensible because that was not a rational decision. QED. They were unduly influenced by mainstream media scare stories that were based on quackery. Though there may have been a few corner cases where a tiny minority of people had underlying health conditions that made them unsuitable for the MMR vaccine.

[Aladdin Sane]

Re: Just to be clear

There was a fraudulent paper published in the Lancet back in '98 claiming a link between MMR, a specific bowel condition and autism. Despite being debunked and retracted, the damage has been done.

Speaking as somebody who is autistic, if you'd rather your kid die than be autistic you're not even human.

[breakfast]

The perils of efficiency

The pandemic was a great illustration of how the push for efficiency has impacted the public sector. Governments love to be seen to be efficient, cutting every possible penny, firing every possible cleaner, privatising every service that is quick and easy to administer.

The problem is that efficiency exists on the same axis as resilience, and for services like health, environmental safety, or defence if you optimise for efficiency you are going to lose out on resilience. When disaster hits your services that were already running at 98.9% capacity are immediately overwhelmed and you fall into chaotic and unplanned feedback loops that can potentially make things far worse.

After the last few years, I have come to appreciate the need for resilience. Most obvious efficiencies have long since been picked up (air filtering/sterilisation in hospitals may be a low-hanging fruit now we know that viruses are airborne) but at core I'd like to see it sufficiently well staffed that nobody needs to be putting in extra hours outside of a crisis and sufficiently well equipped that it doesn't have to scramble for protective equipment in a panic at the same time everyone else is. Perhaps this is a ridiculous and wild ambition, but if we need to strive for something, why not that?

[ICL1900-G3]

Re: The perils of efficiency

But... shareholder value...

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: The perils of efficiency

Shareholders have as strong an interest as everyone else to survive.

[LogicGate]

Re: The perils of efficiency

And they have a fully stocked survival bunker on an isolated island.

[Roland6]

Re: The perils of efficiency

One of the things we learnt from COVID, there is no isolated island on earth that is remote enough to escape from COVID; it might have taken time, but it got to the remote Pacific islands…