What really gets to me is the lockdown we originally had in place at the end of March was intended to buy us time while we found a vaccine and got a test and trace system up and running. Boris boasted we'd have a world beating system and allocated 12 billion pounds for the task.
What we have is every hospital using their own versions of Excel to produce some numbers and then sending files off to be integrated in some data centre. Only some of the file types were licenced in 1987 and are limited in size. So many records were lost. The system is near useless.
How amazingly inappropriate the use of Excel was for this task seems to slip by the MPs and most commentators.
What was needed for the task was a central database and a website the hospitals could use to enter the data. All they'd have to do was login and fill in some values on some forms. The system would validate the data, keep track of all data entry and any entries that failed. And the data could be available in real time to scientists, the government, the public.
I could have done it myself if I'd started in March! The depth of incompetence I think is profound. We'll now continue with lockdowns that will only slow transmission a bit. People are fed up with it and have understandably lost faith in the government to handle it. It's going to be an ugly winter in the UK.
