Hi Adrian, appreciate your detailed reply and I agree with a lot of but would like to comment further on a few things..
Well if it is true that antibody test are not effective we have already paid for millions of anitbody tests and if the above is correct then they may be useless anyway and where web are in the queue is irrelevant.
Agreed but if a an accurate Test is developed there should be manufacturing ready and waiting to go. No way on this planet should the UK be waiting in the wings to buy from China / whoever.
I tend to agree that it isn't hard to make some of the PPE stuff. However I suspect that we do not hold lots of stock of the required plastic / paper / rubber / similar to make the kit,. Most industries today run on the just in time manufacturing and delivery model and that is across the world. China, India and a few others are some of the major manufacturers in the whole world of many products and will hold the material stock or will make it, that is why we have access to lots of cheap products. We and others in the West went down the outsourcing route some decades ago. So even if we built the manufacturing facilities in the UK we would not necessarily have or be able to get the materials to manufacture the kit at high volumes and in the end might take longer and be more costly, certainly in the short term.
Really doesn't matter what the base materials needed are. The UK should be capable of making them and making the PPE. I read reports that the NHS will not get properly sorted for this UNTILL June. really??? Could not some highly paid individuals have wondered that when China shut down in Feb it just might effect the UK's supply chains and then maybe thought perhaps we should start hedging our bets.I am not sure if you are referring to PPE and/or the Covid19 and Antibody tests, if it is manufacturing of the Tests then we may have insufficient manufacturing tech in this area to actually have the capability to manufacture millions of tests be them Antibody or Covid19 tests. A country like Germany that has a big pharmaceutical manufacturing base has a good chance of doing this but I doubt we have and what we can do will be limited.
I understand that UK Bio Med Tech ( If that is the expression) is some of the best in the world. Its simply a case of build the facilities ASAP. if you can put "Nightingales" into Stadiums it's not rocket science to do the same with manufacturing...
Yes but are you saying that we are to keep all boarders closed to stop contamination coming in, what about food and drug supplies let alone other needed products, they do not come in by robot but with people and they all get handled to some extend. It is not straight forward I am afraid, just think about the process you need to go through when a package arrives on your doorstep to ensure you do not get contaminated by it, imaging doing that with millions of items as they come in over our boarder.
Its really VERY easy to sort this. An EU driver brings a trailer of whatever into the UK on a ferry. He takes that trailor to a big car park, unhooks and connects to a trailer going to the EU, drives back onto a ferry and goes back to the EU. The trailer he dropped is picked up by a UK driver and is delivered.
I'll admit to being a political animal, but my Ma who is 86 isn't. she lives in an a warden assisted flat 250 miles away. she has enough underling symtems that mean one sniff of Covid and she is dead. She told me last week that she thought Billy Boris was a hero because the prick had caught Covid and survived (so far)
She really couldn't see that the reason the NHS is struggling is because of failed government policies. austerity cuts etc etc etc.
Stay safe