Is it just me or have SF vanished?

Sultan_of_Ping

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Again... the shifting and spinning. WHO said anything about 'overnight'



You STILL have to point out who said anything about stopping production of vital drugs.

The Industry, the HSE and the IDA are all looking at this. We were told vociferously that it is a waste of time and that anyone who suggested it was hurling from the ditch and looking for attention.

Ok, then you want to go down the semantic route that's fine - changing production volumes is easy - you can probably generate some change in hours/days - bringing extra capacity online, even in an atmosphere of regulatory forebearance, takes weeks.

And stopping production of certain drugs, devices etc is axiomatic in your proposals - facilities switching to produce reagents or testing kits are not producing something else, production is being displaced, which means someone has to go without.

And you still no notion of what a "vital drug" is or how to identify one.

aido79

FrancieBrady wrote: »

I don't know. But I would if I was ordering 13 years supply (according to Leo) in one go.

What sort of ppe would you advise frontline staff to use during the 2 week delay between no ppe and the delivery from China?

FrancieBrady

jh79 wrote: »

What type of due diligence should they have done? Sending a team to China during a pandemic that originated in China is obviously a bad idea.

We have people there already, clearly versed in local business. Did they have a role?
I mean, it wasn't as if spotting the problems with the gear was a specialised skill. A simple photo of the problems with the equipment on Twitter showed every man woman and child what the issue was with it.

https://www.dfa.ie/irish-embassy/china/about-us/team-ireland-china/

Sultan_of_Ping

FrancieBrady wrote: »

I don't know. But I would if I was ordering 13 years supply (according to Leo) in one go.

Never heard of the old adage "you can't inspect in quality" - best you could do is visual inspections while there and so what? Conformity markings are easy enough to counterfeit.

And wihtout a factory / site visit how would you know what to sample, what attribute to focus on, or even if you were getting a representative sample......


.......or would you inspect every, single item? And if you wouldn't what would you say is a represntative sample?

tikkahunter

jh79 wrote: »

Pharma companies use PPE all day everyday. Do you really think they send an inspection team over for every order?

We are supplied vials from the best manufacture of vials in the world , same with stoppers and caps - even being the top manufactures we have ran into issues with one of them at some stage and the batch was delayed. Even the top manufactures make mistakes but you buy from them without inspection ,these defects just show up later on in production. Like all companies you take them at their word - its no different weather your buying PPE or cups for the canteen.

Sultan_of_Ping

aido79 wrote: »

What sort of ppe would you advise frontline staff to use during the 2 week delay between no ppe and the delivery from China?

Darren O'Rourke posted the answer to that - here's what he retweeted.....

https://twitter.com/Constance8News/status/1246186931643449349?s=20

.....masks made from bandanas!! - it would be funny it wasn't so risky.

FrancieBrady

Sultan_of_Ping wrote: »

Never heard of the old adage "you can't inspect in quality" - best you could do is visual inspections while there and so what? Conformity markings are easy enough to counterfeit.

And wihtout a factory / site visit how would you know what to sample, what attribute to focus on, or even if you were getting a representative sample......


.......or would you inspect every, single item? And if you wouldn't what would you say is a represntative sample?

Ok...the FG mantra today seems to be...just give up. Put roadblocks in the way evry step of the way. THERE IS NO BETTER WAY, just the FG way. Don't question, don't seek solutions and don't criticise.

Fair enough, we get it.

aido79

Sultan_of_Ping wrote: »

Darren O'Rourke posted the answer to that - here's what he retweeted.....

https://twitter.com/Constance8News/status/1246186931643449349?s=20

.....masks made from bandanas!! - it would be funny it wasn't so risky.

What's even worse is the fact that he is a medical scientist at St James hospital

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darren_O'Rourke

It's very worrying that someone from a medical science background would spread this.

aido79

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Ok...the FG mantra today seems to be...just give up. Put roadblocks in the way evry step of the way. THERE IS NO BETTER WAY, just the FG way. Don't question, don't seek solutions and don't criticise.

Fair enough, we get it.

This is the SF mantra

Sultan_of_Ping

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Ok...the FG mantra today seems to be...just give up. Put roadblocks in the way evry step of the way. THERE IS NO BETTER WAY, just the FG way. Don't question, don't seek solutions and don't criticise.

Fair enough, we get it.

Not at all, the issue is to deal with the crisis, not make it worse by adding confounding factors.

If someone came to us and said "make reagent" or "make test kits" - we'd say 'no' (after we'd finished laughing).

If someone goes to Lilly and says "make reagent" - Lilly will say "no problem, just let us get the 'recipe' then we're away"

If that loon Tully goes into Abbott in Cootehill and says "I hear Abbott employ thousands in Ireland and you make Covid-19 test kits, maybe you could make some here" they might say "sure, no problem - can SF tell us how to convert an infant formula line to make reagent......and in the mean time what are the rest of the world going to do when we take 15% of the world's production capacity for skimmed milk for use in infant formula off line?"

FrancieBrady

aido79 wrote: »

What's even worse is the fact that he is a medical scientist at St James hospital

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darren_O'Rourke

It's very worrying that someone from a medical science background would spread this.

Yet...others are saying there is nothing essentially wrong with wearing non medical masks.
I don't think he was suggesting these for frontline medical staff was he?

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/ecdc-non-medical-face-masks-in-busy-closed-spaces-could-be-considered-993107.html

I see more and more people wearing some type of mask from cheap throw away ones to scarves. (cue balaclava jokes )

Yurt2

aido79 wrote: »

What's even worse is the fact that he is a medical scientist at St James hospital

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darren_O'Rourke

It's very worrying that someone from a medical science background would spread this.

Actually I was listening to a British medical professional on the Economist podcast who was saying that in the absence of masks, as hoc created masks from tea-towels or other materials are an acceptable substitute.

He was commenting on British CDC advice on the same.

But bash away

jh79

FrancieBrady wrote: »

We have people there already, clearly versed in local business. Did they have a role?
I mean, it wasn't as if spotting the problems with the gear was a specialised skill. A simple photo of the problems with the equipment on Twitter showed every man woman and child what the issue was with it.

https://www.dfa.ie/irish-embassy/china/about-us/team-ireland-china/

So insted of taking delivery of an order of 100,000 pieces of PPE having 80% meeting the required standards, you waste couple of weeks getting 80,000 pieces of the required standard and possibly expose IDA staff to COVID-19.

That's what you would do?

FrancieBrady

Sultan_of_Ping wrote: »

Not at all, the issue is to deal with the crisis, not make it worse by adding confounding factors.

If someone came to us and said "make reagent" or "make test kits" - we'd say 'no' (after we'd finished laughing).

If someone goes to Lilly and says "make reagent" - Lilly will say "no problem, just let us get the 'recipe' then we're away"

If that loon Tully goes into Abbott in Cootehill and says "I hear Abbott employ thousands in Ireland and you make Covid-19 test kits, maybe you could make some here" they might say "sure, no problem - can SF tell us how to convert an infant formula line to make reagent......and in the mean time what are the rest of the world going to do when we take 15% of the world's production capacity for skimmed milk for use in infant formula off line?"

Except, she didn't say that, did she?

As I said to blanch last night, it is not as if other deputy's haven't made suggestions that were wrong in fact or just plain loony tunes...FG/FF?Lab the Greens (lets grow veggies on our windowsills everyone!)

The bile unleashed from the FG protection racket here is a sight to behold sometimes.

blanch152

FrancieBrady wrote: »

I have no SF specific agenda on this. I am in business, I am used to solving logistical problems.
I don't as a rule begin a conversation by saying...'ah no..no that can't be done'.

Times of crisis, you move mountains. Or you at least, look at ways of moving the mountain.

https://www.dfa.ie/irish-embassy/china/about-us/team-ireland-china/

Why the link to the Embassy team?

Are you suggesting that our man or woman in Beijing, a career civil servant diplomat, is qualified to assess the product quality of PPE equipment?

If you are, you really should think again. Whatever the qualities of our diplomats, and I would personally know quite a significant number of them from my time in the civil service, and many if not most of them, are brilliant at what they do, they certainly don't qualify as inspectors of PPE.

Sultan_of_Ping

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Yet...others are saying there is nothing essentially wrong with wearing non medical masks.
I don't think he was suggesting these for frontline medical staff was he?

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/ecdc-non-medical-face-masks-in-busy-closed-spaces-could-be-considered-993107.html

I see more and more people wearing some type of mask from cheap throw away ones to scarves. (cue balaclava jokes )

Non-medical face masks doesn't mean any old mask - what's the filtration efficiency of a bandana?

Cloth masks would be useless for viruses - the particles would jus slip throug the weave no matter how many folds you put in it. So unless you can pop in some kind of efficient filter all you are doing is creating a false sense of security which will lead people into situations where they think they are protected but they are most definitely not.

Sultan_of_Ping

Yurt! wrote: »

Actually I was listening to a British medical professional on the Economist podcast who was saying that in the absence of masks, as hoc created masks from tea-towels or other materials are an acceptable substitute.

He was commenting on British CDC advice on the same.

But bash away

The British don't have a CDC - are you talking about the ECDC or HPE or HPS?

FrancieBrady

jh79 wrote: »

So insted of taking delivery of an order of 100,000 pieces of PPE having 80% meeting the required standards, you waste couple of weeks getting 80,000 pieces of the required standard and possibly expose IDA staff to COVID-19.

That's what you would do?

When dealing with a known source of dodgy supplies, would it not occur to you to put some scrutiny in place?
We have people there already, exposed to the virus everyday.

The very fact that a supplier knows that a consignment is likely to be scrutinised will often stop them chancing their arm.

I don't know if it was logistically possible to do all this...but I am certainly not going to censor or protect by not asking questions.
Questions need to be asked all the time. And answers need to be forthcoming. It's called transparency.

aido79

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Yet...others are saying there is nothing essentially wrong with wearing non medical masks.
I don't think he was suggesting these for frontline medical staff was he?

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/ecdc-non-medical-face-masks-in-busy-closed-spaces-could-be-considered-993107.html

I see more and more people wearing some type of mask from cheap throw away ones to scarves. (cue balaclava jokes )

Maybe he wasn't but you still haven't answered what the frontline staff should wear during the 2 week delay in getting the ppe from China under your procurement system.

Yurt2

Sultan_of_Ping wrote: »

The British don't have a CDC - are you talking about the ECDC or HPE or HPS?

Don't know what the name of it is exactly, but the equivalent org of the CDC in the US. The gent was commenting on their advice which was on using other materials to make masks in the absence of professionally produced ones.

Feel free to listen to the podcast if you so wish, it's the Economist's Editor's Pick podcast latest one

threeball

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Oh get lost and find someone else to misrepresent Sultan.

What was it...10 jets...were mobilised to go get this stuff, that was 'moving a mountain,. Are you telling me mobilising a team to inspect the shipment was an unmovable mountain? Bull****.

You can't get in to the fcuking country for 14 days. The pilots couldn't even get off the plane. How do you propose sending a team to oversee production, or should the health staff just sit around for 3 weeks while we get the minute details sorted.

aido79

Yurt! wrote: »

Actually I was listening to a British medical professional on the Economist podcast who was saying that in the absence of masks, as hoc created masks from tea-towels or other materials are an acceptable substitute.

He was commenting on British CDC advice on the same.

But bash away

Did he show any evidence of how effective these would be against viruses?

Yurt2

aido79 wrote: »

Did he show any evidence of how effective these would be against viruses?

He basically said they're not as bad as you'd imagine, that if it seals off the nose and mouth it basically does the same job as a surgical mask for the general public

The podcast is up online if you wish to have a listen

blackwhite

FrancieBrady wrote: »

How many 'successful businesses' would place an order of that scale, with a known unreliable, quality wise, source and not do some due diligence before accepting the order? And what business management would not face criticism from owners if they did?

I don't know of a single one.

What was it we said about shifting the goalposts :rolleyes:



If the business had a choice between waiting an extra 14 days for supplies that they business would fail without; or taking immediate delivery to avoid business failure. They'd take the risk of having to discard a percentage of the supplies.

What they wouldn't do is piss around proposing solutions that they know aren't feasible - or try to ignore what reality is presented to them

Sultan_of_Ping

Yurt! wrote: »

Don't know what the name of it is exactly, but the equivalent org of the CDC in the US. The gent was commenting on their advice which was on using other materials to make masks in the absence of professionally produced ones.

Rupert Beale, an infections biologist at the Francis Crick Institute? He's the one referenced in the article linked to the podcast.....

Looks like he was referring to two studies...

Ben Cowling, an epidemiologist at Hong Kong University, measured the amount of virus shed, in half an hour of breaths and coughs, by participants infected with a variety of respiratory viruses, including influenza, rhinovirus and coronaviruses (though not sars-cov-2). In the case of those with coronaviruses, 30% of droplets and 40% of aerosol particles exhaled by participants without a surgical face-mask on contained virus particles. When they wore masks, that dropped to zero.

An experiment carried out in 2013 by Public Health England, that country’s health-protection agency, found that a commercially made surgical mask filtered 90% of virus particles from the air coughed out by participants, a vacuum cleaner bag filtered out 86%, a tea towel blocked 72% and a cotton t-shirt 51%—though fitting any diy mask properly and ensuring a good seal around the mouth and nose is crucial.

....both of which refer to virus shedding, not that homemade masks will protect you from picking up aersolised particles - if you have a home-made mask on, and there's a shedder close with no mask, you're goosed!

The conclusion seems to be me that mask-wearing may help, but the implication, given the reference to not drawing supplies away from medics etc, is that they need to be proper masks, not bandanas or yer ma's scarf folded neatly

For everyone else, washing hands and maintaining social distance is the most important way to keep transmission down. Wearing masks in public does no harm, and may do some good—but that is always providing it does not reduce the supply available to local doctors and nurses.

jh79

FrancieBrady wrote: »

When dealing with a known source of dodgy supplies, would it not occur to you to put some scrutiny in place?
We have people there already, exposed to the virus everyday.

The very fact that a supplier knows that a consignment is likely to be scrutinised will often stop them chancing their arm.

I don't know if it was logistically possible to do all this...but I am certainly not going to censor or protect by not asking questions.
Questions need to be asked all the time. And answers need to be forthcoming. It's called transparency.

The questioning isn't the problem it's your naive proposed solutions that are getting lambasted.

Do you not think that such a well resourced party like SF should have a better understanding of how these things work?

Is it incompetence or opportunistic point scoring behind this is the real question.

FrancieBrady

blackwhite wrote: »

What was it we said about shifting the goalposts :rolleyes:



If the business had a choice between waiting an extra 14 days for supplies that they business would fail without; or taking immediate delivery to avoid business failure. They'd take the risk of having to discard a percentage of the supplies.

What they wouldn't do is piss around proposing solutions that they know aren't feasible - or try to ignore what reality is presented to them

How the f**k do you what is and isn't feasible if you don't ask questions?

Again, all it took was a photo on Twitter to explain to the nation what the problems were with the shipment.

blackwhite

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Ok...the FG mantra today seems to be...just give up. Put roadblocks in the way evry step of the way. THERE IS NO BETTER WAY, just the FG way. Don't question, don't seek solutions and don't criticise.

Fair enough, we get it.

Where did they give up?

They did the best possible with the circumstances presented to them - and as a result managed to secure a large consignment of PPE, of which 75% was viable.

Your solution offered seemed to be to fanny around for 2 weeks waiting for a team to pass quarantine, and then do inspections that would have resulted in the same 75% being passed and arriving a couple of weeks later.


I guess all the extra infections that two week delay would bring is worth it just to score some political points though - we've seen time and again exactly what Francie's attitude to balancing civilian casualties against "the cause"

Yurt2

Sultan_of_Ping wrote: »

....both of which refer to virus shedding, not that homemade masks will protect you from picking up aersolised particles - if you have a home-made mask on, and there's a shedder close with no mask, you're goosed!

The conclusion seems to be me that mask-wearing may help, but the implication, given the reference to not drawing supplies away from medics etc, is that they need to be proper masks, not bandanas or yer ma's scarf folded neatly

I'm not sure where you're taking this. The professional on the podcast more or less said that the advice from the competent British authority on wearing homemade masks wasn't a bad one.

aido79

Yurt! wrote: »

He basically said they're not as bad as you'd imagine, that if it seals off the nose and mouth it basically does the same job as a surgical mask for the general public

The podcast is up online if you wish to have a listen

I'd put them in the category of "better than nothing" from what I've read similar to closing your eyes when using an angle grinder instead of using goggles or safety glasses.
Still no solution for frontline staff who are the main end users of the ppe required.