Boris seems to have promised contact tracing to start 1 June, in response to Starmer's questions. What could go wrong?
If he'd said he wasn't going to do contact tracing at all that would be worse. And if he'd said a later date he'd be panned for not doing enough soon enough.
Because outsourcing is a crock of shit that has created a kind of oligarchy of incompetence - there are only a handful of companies that have the scale to tackle large-scale government projects, and so each one knows that as long as they're not significantly more incompetent than their rivals, the government has nowhere else to spaff the cash,
And the government has outsourced expertise to the point where they are unable to create good contracts, and so most projects initially turn out something unfit for purpose and then roll into change control at which point the cost climbs rapidly.
ISTM there is a basic flaw in outsourcing, which is that:
If the contractor understands the thing being outsourced better than the Government, it can use its superior knowledge to screw over the Government, rather than to provide a good service;
If the Government understands the thing being outsourced better than the contractor, then not only is outsourcing pointless, but the Government is likely to end up having to bail out the contractor anyway.
Wow, no. If a governmental agency does a task with great frequency, then hiring permanent staff makes sense. When they do not, it doesn't.
No government agency can have every person it needs to do everything it needs having done. It simply isn't cost effective. Outsourcing, properly done, uses resources for occasional/specialised jobs and is overseen by staff who understand the process. There is a balance between in-house and outsourcing, but government being government, it is often got wrong.
The idea that contractors always screw the government is both cynical and wrong.* The idea that the government, which constantly prove they completely know how to fuck up, will not fuck up if they do every job, is mind-numbing.
*Because we are in a phase of over-reaction here on SOF: Yes, some contractors take advantage of the system.
However, the idea that Serco, Capita and G4S always screw the government does seem to be supported by the evidence. "Government being government" isn't an excuse. If we want to stop outsourcing fuckups we have to stop electing politicians who think the answer to everything is outsourcing. Serco is built around bidding for government contracts, and they don't seem to be specialised in anything much except that. I mean, they were awarded the contract to run the ferries to Orkney and Shetland a few years back, then couldn't source a replacement ferry when the Hamnavoe broke down. Not surprising for a company with no experience of the industry.
If an incompetent contractor is hired, the governmental agency that hired them is also at fault. If a contractor goes wrong, the governmental agency managing their contract is also at fault. There are exceptions to both those things, but they are exceptions.
IME, there is a balance between outsource and in-house. Typically those making the decisions of which to do have no clue or are playing politics.
I'm not saying all government workers are incompetent or are always the problem. But the agency is the start and end point of responsibility and create the framework for the contract. They also manage the contract throughout its duration. If the contractor is a problem, so is whoever hired and managed them.
Because outsourcing is a crock of shit that has created a kind of oligarchy of incompetence - there are only a handful of companies that have the scale to tackle large-scale government projects, and so each one knows that as long as they're not significantly more incompetent than their rivals, the government has nowhere else to spaff the cash,
And the government has outsourced expertise to the point where they are unable to create good contracts, and so most projects initially turn out something unfit for purpose and then roll into change control at which point the cost climbs rapidly.
ISTM there is a basic flaw in outsourcing, which is that:
If the contractor understands the thing being outsourced better than the Government, it can use its superior knowledge to screw over the Government, rather than to provide a good service;
If the Government understands the thing being outsourced better than the contractor, then not only is outsourcing pointless, but the Government is likely to end up having to bail out the contractor anyway.
Wow, no. If a governmental agency does a task with great frequency, then hiring permanent staff makes sense. When they do not, it doesn't.
No government agency can have every person it needs to do everything it needs having done. It simply isn't cost effective. Outsourcing, properly done, uses resources for occasional/specialised jobs and is overseen by staff who understand the process. There is a balance between in-house and outsourcing, but government being government, it is often got wrong.
The idea that contractors always screw the government is both cynical and wrong.* The idea that the government, which constantly prove they completely know how to fuck up, will not fuck up if they do every job, is mind-numbing.
*Because we are in a phase of over-reaction here on SOF: Yes, some contractors take advantage of the system.
However, the idea that Serco, Capita and G4S always screw the government does seem to be supported by the evidence. "Government being government" isn't an excuse. If we want to stop outsourcing fuckups we have to stop electing politicians who think the answer to everything is outsourcing. Serco is built around bidding for government contracts, and they don't seem to be specialised in anything much except that. I mean, they were awarded the contract to run the ferries to Orkney and Shetland a few years back, then couldn't source a replacement ferry when the Hamnavoe broke down. Not surprising for a company with no experience of the industry.
If an incompetent contractor is hired, the governmental agency that hired them is also at fault. If a contractor goes wrong, the governmental agency managing their contract is also at fault. There are exceptions to both those things, but they are exceptions.
IME, there is a balance between outsource and in-house. Typically those making the decisions of which to do have no clue or are playing politics.
I'm not saying all government workers are incompetent or are always the problem. But the agency is the start and end point of responsibility and create the framework for the contract. They also manage the contract throughout its duration. If the contractor is a problem, so is whoever hired and managed them.
Well argued but the flaw is that the agencies in question are under political control and to a large extent it seems that political ideology trumps good practice when the ministers direct the agency under their control.
Because outsourcing is a crock of shit that has created a kind of oligarchy of incompetence - there are only a handful of companies that have the scale to tackle large-scale government projects, and so each one knows that as long as they're not significantly more incompetent than their rivals, the government has nowhere else to spaff the cash,
And the government has outsourced expertise to the point where they are unable to create good contracts, and so most projects initially turn out something unfit for purpose and then roll into change control at which point the cost climbs rapidly.
ISTM there is a basic flaw in outsourcing, which is that:
If the contractor understands the thing being outsourced better than the Government, it can use its superior knowledge to screw over the Government, rather than to provide a good service;
If the Government understands the thing being outsourced better than the contractor, then not only is outsourcing pointless, but the Government is likely to end up having to bail out the contractor anyway.
Wow, no. If a governmental agency does a task with great frequency, then hiring permanent staff makes sense. When they do not, it doesn't.
No government agency can have every person it needs to do everything it needs having done. It simply isn't cost effective. Outsourcing, properly done, uses resources for occasional/specialised jobs and is overseen by staff who understand the process. There is a balance between in-house and outsourcing, but government being government, it is often got wrong.
The idea that contractors always screw the government is both cynical and wrong.* The idea that the government, which constantly prove they completely know how to fuck up, will not fuck up if they do every job, is mind-numbing.
*Because we are in a phase of over-reaction here on SOF: Yes, some contractors take advantage of the system.
However, the idea that Serco, Capita and G4S always screw the government does seem to be supported by the evidence. "Government being government" isn't an excuse. If we want to stop outsourcing fuckups we have to stop electing politicians who think the answer to everything is outsourcing. Serco is built around bidding for government contracts, and they don't seem to be specialised in anything much except that. I mean, they were awarded the contract to run the ferries to Orkney and Shetland a few years back, then couldn't source a replacement ferry when the Hamnavoe broke down. Not surprising for a company with no experience of the industry.
If an incompetent contractor is hired, the governmental agency that hired them is also at fault. If a contractor goes wrong, the governmental agency managing their contract is also at fault. There are exceptions to both those things, but they are exceptions.
IME, there is a balance between outsource and in-house. Typically those making the decisions of which to do have no clue or are playing politics.
I'm not saying all government workers are incompetent or are always the problem. But the agency is the start and end point of responsibility and create the framework for the contract. They also manage the contract throughout its duration. If the contractor is a problem, so is whoever hired and managed them.
Well argued but the flaw is that the agencies in question are under political control and to a large extent it seems that political ideology trumps good practice when the ministers direct the agency under their control.
AFZ
Political ideology can affect agency performance, yes. But that is far from the only problem. I have worked at both ends of these situations and often the problem is that those making the decisions have no clue as to the parameters of the situation they are administering. Large contract things like ferries will be more directly affected by politics, but smaller contracts will more likely be affected by competence.
Aye, but it takes a particularly developed level of incompetence to award a ferry contract to an organisation without any experience in running ferry services or any ferries. Even more so to do that twice.
Well, who is going to be doing contact tracing? The obvious choice would be local health staff, since it is part of their historical remit, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's awarded to Serco.
Well, who is going to be doing contact tracing? The obvious choice would be local health staff, since it is part of their historical remit, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's awarded to Serco.
Well, who is going to be doing contact tracing? The obvious choice would be local health staff, since it is part of their historical remit, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's awarded to Serco.
It has already been awarded to Serco.
I think I've seen ads for tracers. I wonder how well trained they will be. Traditionally, this was done through shoe leather, as phone surveys are not as good.
Well, who is going to be doing contact tracing? The obvious choice would be local health staff, since it is part of their historical remit, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's awarded to Serco.
I hope to have some inside information on this soon. My Best Man works for the MOD (He's a very senior project manager). He sent me a text last week telling me he'd been seconded to the Dept of Health as part of the contract tracing program. I'm hoping to have a chat with him and find out a bit more about it. He knows very little virology or epidemiology but so what? He is an excellent project manager with experience of multi-million-pound, multi-year projects with various stake-holders including governmental and industry. The notion of matching resources to needs will be second-nature to him.
So given this, clearly the DoH and Civil Service are doing some of the work in-house. I am looking forward to finding out more about it.
We had our first zero day yesterday. No new diagnoses. Active cases 123. Total cases 599. Population 1.1 million. Sask Dashboard.
I just don't get it. How we're not openning schools. Most businesses are still closed. Those open have either physical distance rule or PPE requirements for both customers and staff.
How the hell is it that some of your jurisdictions are openning up more?
The incubation period of the virus is up to 2 weeks. You think everything's resolved after ONE zero day?
Perhaps you didn't read. I am asking how those areas with much more infection, higher rates of, are opening things.
We followed 2 days with none with 5. All within a particular area of the province. Remote as in 450km from major medical centre and 150 from anything else. So road blocks etc.
We're sparsely populated enough that the main hospital for this outbreak is 300 km from it.
Well, who is going to be doing contact tracing? The obvious choice would be local health staff, since it is part of their historical remit, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's awarded to Serco.
I hope to have some inside information on this soon. My Best Man works for the MOD (He's a very senior project manager). He sent me a text last week telling me he'd been seconded to the Dept of Health as part of the contract tracing program. I'm hoping to have a chat with him and find out a bit more about it. He knows very little virology or epidemiology but so what? He is an excellent project manager with experience of multi-million-pound, multi-year projects with various stake-holders including governmental and industry. The notion of matching resources to needs will be second-nature to him.
Without aiming at your friend, I disagree. The idea that any sufficiently intelligent/experienced person can manage anything without specific experience is bollocks. I am not saying your friend will not manage, but that the concept is generally unsound. And yes, I say this form experience.
Any complex operation will require two skills: specific expertise in the area of concern (in this case virology, epidemiology and the like), and an ability to organise and manage logistics. Successful management of the operation doesn't need one person with all those skills heading it up - it needs a team who have those skills between them and an ability to work together (and, listen to others who might have specific expertise they need).
Any complex operation will require two skills: specific expertise in the area of concern (in this case virology, epidemiology and the like), and an ability to organise and manage logistics. Successful management of the operation doesn't need one person with all those skills heading it up - it needs a team who have those skills between them and an ability to work together (and, listen to others who might have specific expertise they need).
If those making the decision do not understand the process well enough, poor decisions will be made. Management need not be experts at the job, but they should understand it. Thinking all management tasks are the same is a recipe for failure.
No, the recipe for failure is not recognising what you don't know. If you fill that gap by having a team of people who know what you don't and letting them keep you straight then you avoid the recipe for failure.
In this case you need someone to coordinate a programme of tracing people who have been in contact with someone who's been diagnosed as having covid19. That doesn't need an understanding of the disease to any extent more than I do (someone passes over a memo with the length of time someone would have been contagious so you know how far back you need to go - as I understand it that's on average the first 5 days after infection, so work on 8 or 9 day (the experts will give the right safety margin) before first symptoms). It needs someone who can direct a very large number of people, making sure they're in the right place and have all the test kits, PPE and other equipment they need - that's almost got "military logistics" written all over it. Add in the relevant expertise within parts of the military - eg: monitoring and tracking CBRN (and, I think this counts as "biological"). It's not automatically crazy to have a military lead on running a tracing programme.
We're starting phase 2 of business opening. All retail. Physical distancing, number of people, signs to direct people all required. Anyone working outside of their home or in any way in contact with the public can request a COVID 19 test. Goal is to have testing done within 2 hours. You can have another as soon as your results are back. Tracing if anything positive.
They're going out to some workplaces and offering tests on site.
Masks are needed if the work doesn't allow continuous 2m distancing from others.
Schools are contingency closed until 2022, but possibly open in the fall. Children aren't reliable re 2m distancing. All is online. Free cell data and internet. Tablets and computers provided when needed.
Anything online that can be remains. Banks, university lectures, restaurants are delivery and pickup only.
It needs someone who can direct a very large number of people, making sure they're in the right place and have all the test kits, PPE and other equipment they need - that's almost got "military logistics" written all over it. Add in the relevant expertise within parts of the military - eg: monitoring and tracking CBRN (and, I think this counts as "biological"). It's not automatically crazy to have a military lead on running a tracing programme.
Not automatically, but military logistical failure are from from unknown.
I'm not saying an outsider cannot be effective, Just that it is a common failure mode.
List of countries with at least 10,000 known COVID-19 cases.
United States - 1,591,991 (1,126,921 / 370,076 / 94,994)
Russia - 308,705 (220,341 / 85,392 / 2,972)
Brazil - 293,357 (157,780 / 116,683 / 18,894) 13.9%
Spain - 279,524 (54,678 / 196,958 / 27,888)
United Kingdom - 248,293 (212,245 / 344 / 35,704)
Italy - 227,364 (62,752 / 132,282 / 32,330) 19.6%
France - 181,575 (90,089 / 63,354 / 28,132)
Germany - 178,531 (13,361 / 156,900 / 8,270) 5.0%
Turkey - 152,587 (34,378 / 113,987 / 4,222) 3.6%
Iran - 126,949 (20,958 / 98,808 / 7,183) 6.8%
India - 112,359 (63,502 / 45,422 / 3,435)
Peru - 104,020 (59,028 / 41,968 / 3,024)
China - 82,967 (84 / 78,249 / 4,634) 5.6%
Canada - 80,142 (33,335 / 40,776 / 6,031)
Saudi Arabia - 62,545 (28,728 / 33,478 / 339)
Mexico - 56,594 (11,628 / 38,876 / 6,090) 13.5%
Belgium - 55,983 (31,986 / 14,847 / 9,150)
Chile - 53,617 (30,569 / 22,504 / 544)
Pakistan - 48,091 (32,919 / 14,155 / 1,017)
Netherlands - 44,447 (38,449 / 250 / 5,748)
Qatar - 37,097 (30,481 / 6,600 / 16)
Ecuador - 34,854 (28,409 / 3,557 / 2,888)
Belarus - 32,426 (20,832 / 11,415 / 179)
Sweden - 31,523 (22,721 / 4,971 / 3,831)
Switzerland - 30,658 (966 / 27,800 / 1,892) 6.4%
Portugal - 29,660 (21,945 / 6,452 / 1,263)
Singapore - 29,364 (18,135 / 11,207 / 22)
Bangladesh - 26,738 (21,145 / 5,207 / 386)
United Arab Emirates - 26,004 (13,962 / 11,809 / 233)
Ireland - 24,315 (1,684 / 21,060 / 1,571) 6.9%
Poland - 19,739 (10,594 / 8,183 / 962)
Ukraine - 19,230 (12,711 / 5,955 / 564)
Indonesia - 19,189 (13,372 / 4,575 / 1,242)
South Africa - 18,003 (8,714 / 8,950 / 339)
Colombia - 17,687 (12,801 / 4,256 / 630)
Kuwait - 17,568 (12,559 / 4,885 / 124)
Romania - 17,387 (5,884 / 10,356 / 1,147)
Israel - 16,667 (2,884 / 13,504 / 279) 2.0%
Japan - 16,385 (3,328 / 12,286 / 771) 5.9%
Austria - 16,353 (838 / 14,882 / 633) 4.1%
Egypt - 14,229 (9,555 / 3,994 / 680)
Dominican Republic - 13,477 (5,889 / 7,142 / 446)
Philippines - 13,221 (9,447 / 2,932 / 842)
South Korea - 11,122 (723 / 10,135 / 264) 2.5%
Denmark - 11,117 (1,027 / 9,536 / 554) 5.5%
Serbia - 10,833 (5,531 / 5,067 / 235)
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1.
Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries twenty-nine of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Turkey and Iran.
No countries have joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
The Navajo Nation is having a terrible time with the virus, partly because many people don't have running water. Something was mentioned on the news that, at that moment, *they* were the epicenter...not sure if that was of the US or the world.
Because outsourcing is a crock of shit that has created a kind of oligarchy of incompetence - there are only a handful of companies that have the scale to tackle large-scale government projects, and so each one knows that as long as they're not significantly more incompetent than their rivals, the government has nowhere else to spaff the cash,
And the government has outsourced expertise to the point where they are unable to create good contracts, and so most projects initially turn out something unfit for purpose and then roll into change control at which point the cost climbs rapidly.
ISTM there is a basic flaw in outsourcing, which is that:
If the contractor understands the thing being outsourced better than the Government, it can use its superior knowledge to screw over the Government, rather than to provide a good service;
If the Government understands the thing being outsourced better than the contractor, then not only is outsourcing pointless, but the Government is likely to end up having to bail out the contractor anyway.
Wow, no. If a governmental agency does a task with great frequency, then hiring permanent staff makes sense. When they do not, it doesn't.
No government agency can have every person it needs to do everything it needs having done. It simply isn't cost effective. Outsourcing, properly done, uses resources for occasional/specialised jobs and is overseen by staff who understand the process. There is a balance between in-house and outsourcing, but government being government, it is often got wrong.
The idea that contractors always screw the government is both cynical and wrong.*
That's why I said 'can', not 'always'. It's almost as though people are overreacting ....
The problem is that the current Conservative administration has a bias for outsourcing, and also thinks that the commercial imperative will automatically force contractors to do a more efficient job than civil servants. It doesn't seem to occur to them that those same commercial imperatives also give the outsourcing company an incentive to take advantage of the Government, if they can.
mind-numbing
What purpose does this kind of comment serve?
If an incompetent contractor is hired, the governmental agency that hired them is also at fault. If a contractor goes wrong, the governmental agency managing their contract is also at fault.
I 100% agree, but that is kind of my point.
The agency can protect themselves from hiring incompetent contractors, or from drawing up contracts that turn out to grossly favour the contractor, by actually trying to understand the situation properly. But if they do reach a point where they understand the situation properly, then they might as well administer the project themselves
No, the recipe for failure is not recognising what you don't know. If you fill that gap by having a team of people who know what you don't and letting them keep you straight then you avoid the recipe for failure.
In this case you need someone to coordinate a programme of tracing people who have been in contact with someone who's been diagnosed as having covid19. That doesn't need an understanding of the disease to any extent more than I do (someone passes over a memo with the length of time someone would have been contagious so you know how far back you need to go - as I understand it that's on average the first 5 days after infection, so work on 8 or 9 day (the experts will give the right safety margin) before first symptoms). It needs someone who can direct a very large number of people, making sure they're in the right place and have all the test kits, PPE and other equipment they need - that's almost got "military logistics" written all over it. Add in the relevant expertise within parts of the military - eg: monitoring and tracking CBRN (and, I think this counts as "biological"). It's not automatically crazy to have a military lead on running a tracing programme.
This.
I know a few virologists and quite a lot of medics. The skills of running a large project with matching resources to needs, with a complex and multiskilled team to integrate are not typically found in them. Of course, management not listening to the experts about the virology/epidemiology is a recipe for disaster but you also need people to manage and lead the project. Generally speaking, it is not something most medics have either the skill or experience for. It would be unreasonable to expect them to.
Because outsourcing is a crock of shit that has created a kind of oligarchy of incompetence - there are only a handful of companies that have the scale to tackle large-scale government projects, and so each one knows that as long as they're not significantly more incompetent than their rivals, the government has nowhere else to spaff the cash,
And the government has outsourced expertise to the point where they are unable to create good contracts, and so most projects initially turn out something unfit for purpose and then roll into change control at which point the cost climbs rapidly.
ISTM there is a basic flaw in outsourcing, which is that:
If the contractor understands the thing being outsourced better than the Government, it can use its superior knowledge to screw over the Government, rather than to provide a good service;
If the Government understands the thing being outsourced better than the contractor, then not only is outsourcing pointless, but the Government is likely to end up having to bail out the contractor anyway.
Wow, no. If a governmental agency does a task with great frequency, then hiring permanent staff makes sense. When they do not, it doesn't.
No government agency can have every person it needs to do everything it needs having done. It simply isn't cost effective. Outsourcing, properly done, uses resources for occasional/specialised jobs and is overseen by staff who understand the process. There is a balance between in-house and outsourcing, but government being government, it is often got wrong.
The idea that contractors always screw the government is both cynical and wrong.*
That's why I said 'can', not 'always'. It's almost as though people are overreacting ....
The problem is that the current Conservative administration has a bias for outsourcing, and also thinks that the commercial imperative will automatically force contractors to do a more efficient job than civil servants. It doesn't seem to occur to them that those same commercial imperatives also give the outsourcing company an incentive to take advantage of the Government, if they can.
mind-numbing
What purpose does this kind of comment serve?
If an incompetent contractor is hired, the governmental agency that hired them is also at fault. If a contractor goes wrong, the governmental agency managing their contract is also at fault.
I 100% agree, but that is kind of my point.
The agency can protect themselves from hiring incompetent contractors, or from drawing up contracts that turn out to grossly favour the contractor, by actually trying to understand the situation properly. But if they do reach a point where they understand the situation properly, then they might as well administer the project themselves
Absolutely. The best example of this is rail franchises. In the last decade or so, several times the franchisee has pulled out and the Dept of Transport has run the franchise better until the government has forced it back into the private sector resulting in a worse service and higher prices.
Healthcare is another great example. I don't think anyone seriously thinks that governments should be in the business of building hospitals or producing drugs. However, the pharmaceutical industry does a lot of development and almost no research - the research is almost all funded from the public sector (via research councils) with a little from the charity sector. Hospitals are very large, long term investments, and in most cases, it is only the government sector who invests in them. The question is not should the private sector be involved in public services? Unless one advocates a planned, communist economy then, of course, they should and they will be. The question is all about this interface and how it should work. The past decade has seen large corporations with no relevant experience being given large contracts and completely failing to deliver good services. And the reason it persists is an ideological belief that the private sector must be better. In the face of significant evidence to the contrary.
In the case of the track and trace program, I was intrigued to discover that the Civil Service is contracting staff from a completely different department as well as some out-sourcing. The first rule of project managing (AIUI) is that everyone wants their project to 1) Fulfill the specification completely, 2) Be on time and 3) Be on budget.
In the real world, all three are never achieved and it's always a question of which of the 3, you accept that you're going to fail on. For most things in life, letting the timetable slip is a wise choice. In the military context that might be an absolute disaster. Similarly, with track and trace, the timing is really important (or it will fail AND end more expensive in the end). Of course, the ability to exceed the budget will be determined by central government.
I'm not saying an outsider cannot be effective, Just that it is a common failure mode.
Whoever heads up any operation has the potential to fail, and quite often for the same reasons; failure to take advice from other experts, failure to fully comprehend some of the problems, etc. If we base our decisions on how to establish an operation such as contact tracing on what could go wrong we'll end up never doing anything, because we can all come up with a list of what cold go wrong and why that organisation/individual may get it wrong.
There comes a point where you just need to get on with it as best as you can while avoiding the most obvious points of failure or putting in measures to try and mitigate the effect of what could be foreseen as potential points of failure. The current UK government has an ideological position that private is best, which tends to both ignore the expertise inherent within many government departments and agencies and overplays the capabilities of the private sector. The government holds this ideological position despite ample evidence of failures of the outsourcing model demonstrating that this doesn't always work. I would add that if the government operated on the opposite principle that the government is best at doing everything, and on an ideological basis does everything in-house within government departments and agencies then that is an equally poor position to hold. The question is how do you identify the best people to give you the best chance of solving the problem before us, and be flexible to use people already within government departments and agencies and outsourced private contractors and consultancies based on what competencies and expertise they have (which includes ability to work together).
I don't think there's anyone in mainstream UK politics (not even the 'extreme lefty' Corbyn) advocating that everything be done in-house.
What we have is a continual failure with outsourcing and any critique being met with an argument that boils down to: If you think that maybe we should not outsource everything despite the undeniable record of failure, then you are a communist.
What we are advocating is a sensible approach to identifying where the skills are to be found and what services are best managed in the public sector and which by private contractors paid for by government (and which for that matter the government should have no part of).
The problem is that our extremely ideological government will not even permit the debate and continues to deny its own failures.
In the case of Mr Grayling, a while back, I did the maths: If he'd been paid £1m a week in each of his ministerial posts to not come to work, it would have the taxpayer saved money!
OK, so that's a little frivolous, but it's emblematic of the record of failure. A record that is only permitted because of the ideological absolutism of the government.
The FT tracker shows that Sweden had 6.4 deaths per million people 61 days after its death rate first climbed above 0.1 deaths per million. That contrasts with the UK’s 6.2 deaths per million at the same stage, Italy’s 5.5, and Spain’s 4.
Which should be a warning sign to nations wanting to ease back on restrictions, the nature of exponential growth means that if you're close to the R=1 point then a small change can result in a massive difference in the number of infections (and hence, number of deaths).
In my own little N=1 Normal Caveats Apply world providing local IT to Primary Care, I can report that outsourcing hasn't gone dramatically well and I am now once more (via two TUPE transfers) employed by the main customer for whom we were providing services when we were part of a private outside supplier.
It turns out that "yeah, we can do that, take about half an hour. Don't need to come on site" then just doing stuff was more efficient than "thththththth - we'll draw up a minor works schedule and book an engineer for the minimum half day - that'll be a grand please!"
@alienfromzog the last Labour manifesto did include a plan for public drug manufacture as a means to circumvent price gouging on generics.
I think, though, that there is a qualitative difference between the government purchasing products or services on the open market from companies that have other customers and where a range of suppliers exist and the weird situation of the likes of Serco that exist almost entirely to tender for outsourcing contracts and have no specific expertise beyond that. It's one thing for the government to, say, put out a tender for 40 new married quarters in Aldershott, where they might get dozens of large developers bidding, and things like running a prison where there is no pool of private sector expertise to draw on.
Not sure where the no new cases in London comes from. I've been tracking Lambeth and Southwark, where friends live, on https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk, and there were definitely cases, very few, but there, during that period. Does sarf of the river not count?
@alienfromzog the last Labour manifesto did include a plan for public drug manufacture as a means to circumvent price gouging on generics.
I think, though, that there is a qualitative difference between the government purchasing products or services on the open market from companies that have other customers and where a range of suppliers exist and the weird situation of the likes of Serco that exist almost entirely to tender for outsourcing contracts and have no specific expertise beyond that. It's one thing for the government to, say, put out a tender for 40 new married quarters in Aldershott, where they might get dozens of large developers bidding, and things like running a prison where there is no pool of private sector expertise to draw on.
It was an area of the Labour manifesto that I had some concern about. The devil is always in the detail and I looked at it, and it was about making generics. I'm still not sure if it's a good idea. It's not widely known but the UK government does make drugs. There is a small group at Porton Down that make at least one pharmaceutical (which IIRC is a cancer chemotherapy agent).
As to the wider point, I completely agree. There is a world of difference between getting tenders to build some housing or whatever compared to companies who's entire business model appears to be based on running only large government contracts.
For me, the line is one of natural monopoly. Where a natural monopoly exists, then the default should be public sector, I think.
Whilst I agree about natural monopolies, I do think there is a moral issue in a small number of areas too. I think it is inherently wrong to run military and justice systems (including prisons and probation) for profit.
Whilst I agree about natural monopolies, I do think there is a moral issue in a small number of areas too. I think it is inherently wrong to run military and justice systems (including prisons and probation) for profit.
I completely agree with the moral argument there. Conversely I think these examples are also natural monopolies.
To take things in a different direction; I've just been to an excellent presentation (virtually) on PIMS-TS.
It's a ridiculous name but PIMS-TS stands for Paediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome, Temporally related to SARS-CoV2.
This has been in the general media, but we are talking about a condition which causes massive, systemic inflammation in children, 2-4 weeks after exposure to SARS-CoV2. This is all new, but we have around 100 cases in the UK reported. Similar numbers in Italy and New York.
The presentation was detailed data on the first 37 cases in the UK. It is indeed in some ways, very like Kawasaki Disease, an inflammatory disease which is well understood.
As with all-things Covid-19 related, there is a lot we do not yet know. This appears to be a rare complication of exposure in children/adolescents. However if the numbers of infections are high enough in the community, then a small number of children who never get ill with Covid-19 itself will go on to develop this life-threatening disease. (Two recorded deaths in the UK).
It does beg the question... should schools go back yet? For the most part the risk is to staff, and families. We are confident, that on-the-whole, children are not at risk of Covid-19. We are just not seeing children get ill the way adults do. Conversely this condition appears to be rare but only affects children. I still think the greatest risk of schools returning is that children can be healthy spreaders.
However, this is a truly new, and not well-understood disease entity. We do not know if schools returning will lead to higher numbers of children in intensive care with PIMS-TS.
Whilst I agree about natural monopolies, I do think there is a moral issue in a small number of areas too. I think it is inherently wrong to run military and justice systems (including prisons and probation) for profit.
I completely agree with the moral argument there. Conversely I think these examples are also natural monopolies.
AFZ
This in spades.
We recently had a dispute with an incompetent builder.
We were very lucky. We could borrow more money to pay for a solicitor and to pay another builder to clear up the mess and finish the the job in the meantime.
Had we already been at our absolute limit paying for the work in the first place, we'd have been left with a second mortgage and a useless concrete slab where our extension should be.
It isn't right that we could only resolve the situation because we had the money to do so. We need proper access to the justice system regardless of the ability to pay. This will never happen when the only option is the private sector.
Boris seems to have promised contact tracing to start 1 June, in response to Starmer's questions. What could go wrong?
If he'd said he wasn't going to do contact tracing at all that would be worse. And if he'd said a later date he'd be panned for not doing enough soon enough.
What would you have him do?
Apologise profusely for not having started contact tracing over 2 months ago!
We had our first zero day yesterday. No new diagnoses. Active cases 123. Total cases 599. Population 1.1 million. Sask Dashboard.
I just don't get it. How we're not openning schools. Most businesses are still closed. Those open have either physical distance rule or PPE requirements for both customers and staff.
How the hell is it that some of your jurisdictions are openning up more?
The incubation period of the virus is up to 2 weeks. You think everything's resolved after ONE zero day?
Perhaps you didn't read. I am asking how those areas with much more infection, higher rates of, are opening things.
We followed 2 days with none with 5. All within a particular area of the province. Remote as in 450km from major medical centre and 150 from anything else. So road blocks etc.
We're sparsely populated enough that the main hospital for this outbreak is 300 km from it.
I did read, actually. You didn't just ask that. You asked how you weren't opening schools. In other words, you didn't only reflect on what other jurisdictions were doing, you reflected on your own jurisdiction's inaction.
Whilst I agree about natural monopolies, I do think there is a moral issue in a small number of areas too. I think it is inherently wrong to run military and justice systems (including prisons and probation) for profit.
I completely agree with the moral argument there. Conversely I think these examples [military, justice] are also natural monopolies.
AFZ
This made me smile. 'The invasion fleet is massing across the channel! Get me Serco, Capita, and our most recently updated SLA. Oh, and whoever runs Mr Hoare's outfit these days.'
Any data collation can only be as reliable as the figures being released by various countries, each of which has different methodologies. For example, Belgium has pointed out that it's per capita death rate might be higher than other countries simply because they are including deaths where the diagnosis was not confirmed but where infection was suspected.
Get contact tracing in place, as the only alternative we currently have to lockdown, before he shoves R back above 1 and lets the pandemic kick off again?
Which is what he's just said he's about to do, isn't it?
OK, so he hasn't told people to go back to work in non-essential businesses? No suggestion that schools will re-open, even partially? Not allowed some sporting activities? He's holding off on all these easing of the restrictions that will push R upwards until the tracing system is in place, is he?
It's one thing to say "oh they're not very good, who cares, government outsourcing isn't supposed to be any good!" and another to keep rehiring a company that has defrauded you on a grand scale before.
It's astonishing how persistent this fallacy is among lockdown skeptics, "the lockdown is pointless because it's reduced deaths to the normal level for flu". Figure that one out.
Not sure where the no new cases in London comes from. I've been tracking Lambeth and Southwark, where friends live, on https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk, and there were definitely cases, very few, but there, during that period. Does sarf of the river not count?
It was in most of the papers yesterday, but it does seem wobbly. I thought I read last week that there were 24 new cases on one particular day. I'm not sure why London has reduced so much.
Whilst I agree about natural monopolies, I do think there is a moral issue in a small number of areas too. I think it is inherently wrong to run military and justice systems (including prisons and probation) for profit.
I completely agree with the moral argument there. Conversely I think these examples [military, justice] are also natural monopolies.
AFZ
This made me smile. 'The invasion fleet is massing across the channel! Get me Serco, Capita, and our most recently updated SLA. Oh, and whoever runs Mr Hoare's outfit these days.'
The problem is that the current Conservative administration has a bias for outsourcing, and also thinks that the commercial imperative will automatically force contractors to do a more efficient job than civil servants. It doesn't seem to occur to them that those same commercial imperatives also give the outsourcing company an incentive to take advantage of the Government, if they can.
There should never be a bias for or against outsourcing.
The agency can protect themselves from hiring incompetent contractors, or from drawing up contracts that turn out to grossly favour the contractor, by actually trying to understand the situation properly. But if they do reach a point where they understand the situation properly, then they might as well administer the project themselves
A competent agency administering the project is the best scenario. The agency runs the project and directs either contractors or in-house force. But there is an alternative and that is the agency doing enough research to assess who they bring in to administer the contract and/or have third party, non-involved assistance in selecting the contractor. Understanding who to hire and having the time to manage the project don't necessarily coincide.
Absolutely. The best example of this is rail franchises. In the last decade or so, several times the franchisee has pulled out and the Dept of Transport has run the franchise better until the government has forced it back into the private sector resulting in a worse service and higher prices.
Healthcare is another great example. I don't think anyone seriously thinks that governments should be in the business of building hospitals or producing drugs. However, the pharmaceutical industry does a lot of development and almost no research - the research is almost all funded from the public sector (via research councils) with a little from the charity sector. Hospitals are very large, long term investments, and in most cases, it is only the government sector who invests in them. The question is not should the private sector be involved in public services? Unless one advocates a planned, communist economy then, of course, they should and they will be. The question is all about this interface and how it should work. The past decade has seen large corporations with no relevant experience being given large contracts and completely failing to deliver good services. And the reason it persists is an ideological belief that the private sector must be better. In the face of significant evidence to the contrary.
The reason it persists is not understanding the difference between short term and long term and not understanding what can be run for profit and what cannot.
Trains were never going to be profitable and health care should not be about profit. Services are where the private industry is going to be weakest as far as the public good. Private contractors should build trains and hospitals, not run them.
In the case of the track and trace program, I was intrigued to discover that the Civil Service is contracting staff from a completely different department as well as some out-sourcing. The first rule of project managing (AIUI) is that everyone wants their project to 1) Fulfill the specification completely, 2) Be on time and 3) Be on budget.
In the real world, all three are never achieved and it's always a question of which of the 3, you accept that you're going to fail on. For most things in life, letting the timetable slip is a wise choice. In the military context that might be an absolute disaster. Similarly, with track and trace, the timing is really important (or it will fail AND end more expensive in the end). Of course, the ability to exceed the budget will be determined by central government.
AFZ
The important thing that you left out, and the cause of much of the failure in a project, especially when outsourcing, is writing the specification properly and well. IME, the single largest source of contractors taking advantage of the government, and incidences of basic incompetence, are poorly written specifications.
Administering the specification poorly is a strong secondary source of failure.
I thought this quote summed up the accuracy issue pretty well.
Virginia Pitzer, a Yale University epidemiologist focused on modeling Covid-19’s spread in the United States, said she’d never heard of Worldometer. CNN asked her to assess the website’s reliability.
“I think the Worldometer site is legitimate,” she wrote via email, explaining that many of its sources appear to be credible government websites. But she also found flaws, inconsistencies and an apparent lack of expert curation. “The interpretation of the data is lacking,” she wrote, explaining that she found the data on active cases “particularly problematic” because data on recoveries is not consistently reported.
Having looked at many of the sources used and particularly for the major epicentres, they seem to be official government (or State) sources. The point about active cases is certainly correct. But I think the major data relating to numbers of cases diagnosed and number of deaths can be relied upon to the same extent as the government sources.
The German virologist Christian Drosten, has used the term "prevention paradox", whereby people complain that not many deaths have occurred from covid, ignoring the ones prevented. But reading about German skeptics is not pleasant, as their demonstrations seems to be full of anti-vaxxers, conspiracists, antisemites, Nazis, etc.
But googling it seems to indicate that it refers to a different phenomenon - in this case that the majority of people are only protected from a temporary infection while a small number are protected from a life-threatening illness.
Comments
Be somebody efficient.
IME, there is a balance between outsource and in-house. Typically those making the decisions of which to do have no clue or are playing politics.
I'm not saying all government workers are incompetent or are always the problem. But the agency is the start and end point of responsibility and create the framework for the contract. They also manage the contract throughout its duration. If the contractor is a problem, so is whoever hired and managed them.
Well argued but the flaw is that the agencies in question are under political control and to a large extent it seems that political ideology trumps good practice when the ministers direct the agency under their control.
AFZ
It has already been awarded to Serco.
I think I've seen ads for tracers. I wonder how well trained they will be. Traditionally, this was done through shoe leather, as phone surveys are not as good.
I hope to have some inside information on this soon. My Best Man works for the MOD (He's a very senior project manager). He sent me a text last week telling me he'd been seconded to the Dept of Health as part of the contract tracing program. I'm hoping to have a chat with him and find out a bit more about it. He knows very little virology or epidemiology but so what? He is an excellent project manager with experience of multi-million-pound, multi-year projects with various stake-holders including governmental and industry. The notion of matching resources to needs will be second-nature to him.
So given this, clearly the DoH and Civil Service are doing some of the work in-house. I am looking forward to finding out more about it.
I will share whatever I can here.
AFZ
Perhaps you didn't read. I am asking how those areas with much more infection, higher rates of, are opening things.
We followed 2 days with none with 5. All within a particular area of the province. Remote as in 450km from major medical centre and 150 from anything else. So road blocks etc.
We're sparsely populated enough that the main hospital for this outbreak is 300 km from it.
In this case you need someone to coordinate a programme of tracing people who have been in contact with someone who's been diagnosed as having covid19. That doesn't need an understanding of the disease to any extent more than I do (someone passes over a memo with the length of time someone would have been contagious so you know how far back you need to go - as I understand it that's on average the first 5 days after infection, so work on 8 or 9 day (the experts will give the right safety margin) before first symptoms). It needs someone who can direct a very large number of people, making sure they're in the right place and have all the test kits, PPE and other equipment they need - that's almost got "military logistics" written all over it. Add in the relevant expertise within parts of the military - eg: monitoring and tracking CBRN (and, I think this counts as "biological"). It's not automatically crazy to have a military lead on running a tracing programme.
They're going out to some workplaces and offering tests on site.
Masks are needed if the work doesn't allow continuous 2m distancing from others.
Schools are contingency closed until 2022, but possibly open in the fall. Children aren't reliable re 2m distancing. All is online. Free cell data and internet. Tablets and computers provided when needed.
Anything online that can be remains. Banks, university lectures, restaurants are delivery and pickup only.
We're feeling they've got it mostly right.
I'm not saying an outsider cannot be effective, Just that it is a common failure mode.
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1.
Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries twenty-nine of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Turkey and Iran.
No countries have joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
That's why I said 'can', not 'always'. It's almost as though people are overreacting ....
The problem is that the current Conservative administration has a bias for outsourcing, and also thinks that the commercial imperative will automatically force contractors to do a more efficient job than civil servants. It doesn't seem to occur to them that those same commercial imperatives also give the outsourcing company an incentive to take advantage of the Government, if they can.
What purpose does this kind of comment serve?
I 100% agree, but that is kind of my point.
The agency can protect themselves from hiring incompetent contractors, or from drawing up contracts that turn out to grossly favour the contractor, by actually trying to understand the situation properly. But if they do reach a point where they understand the situation properly, then they might as well administer the project themselves
This.
I know a few virologists and quite a lot of medics. The skills of running a large project with matching resources to needs, with a complex and multiskilled team to integrate are not typically found in them. Of course, management not listening to the experts about the virology/epidemiology is a recipe for disaster but you also need people to manage and lead the project. Generally speaking, it is not something most medics have either the skill or experience for. It would be unreasonable to expect them to.
Absolutely. The best example of this is rail franchises. In the last decade or so, several times the franchisee has pulled out and the Dept of Transport has run the franchise better until the government has forced it back into the private sector resulting in a worse service and higher prices.
Healthcare is another great example. I don't think anyone seriously thinks that governments should be in the business of building hospitals or producing drugs. However, the pharmaceutical industry does a lot of development and almost no research - the research is almost all funded from the public sector (via research councils) with a little from the charity sector. Hospitals are very large, long term investments, and in most cases, it is only the government sector who invests in them. The question is not should the private sector be involved in public services? Unless one advocates a planned, communist economy then, of course, they should and they will be. The question is all about this interface and how it should work. The past decade has seen large corporations with no relevant experience being given large contracts and completely failing to deliver good services. And the reason it persists is an ideological belief that the private sector must be better. In the face of significant evidence to the contrary.
In the case of the track and trace program, I was intrigued to discover that the Civil Service is contracting staff from a completely different department as well as some out-sourcing. The first rule of project managing (AIUI) is that everyone wants their project to 1) Fulfill the specification completely, 2) Be on time and 3) Be on budget.
In the real world, all three are never achieved and it's always a question of which of the 3, you accept that you're going to fail on. For most things in life, letting the timetable slip is a wise choice. In the military context that might be an absolute disaster. Similarly, with track and trace, the timing is really important (or it will fail AND end more expensive in the end). Of course, the ability to exceed the budget will be determined by central government.
AFZ
There comes a point where you just need to get on with it as best as you can while avoiding the most obvious points of failure or putting in measures to try and mitigate the effect of what could be foreseen as potential points of failure. The current UK government has an ideological position that private is best, which tends to both ignore the expertise inherent within many government departments and agencies and overplays the capabilities of the private sector. The government holds this ideological position despite ample evidence of failures of the outsourcing model demonstrating that this doesn't always work. I would add that if the government operated on the opposite principle that the government is best at doing everything, and on an ideological basis does everything in-house within government departments and agencies then that is an equally poor position to hold. The question is how do you identify the best people to give you the best chance of solving the problem before us, and be flexible to use people already within government departments and agencies and outsourced private contractors and consultancies based on what competencies and expertise they have (which includes ability to work together).
I don't think there's anyone in mainstream UK politics (not even the 'extreme lefty' Corbyn) advocating that everything be done in-house.
What we have is a continual failure with outsourcing and any critique being met with an argument that boils down to: If you think that maybe we should not outsource everything despite the undeniable record of failure, then you are a communist.
What we are advocating is a sensible approach to identifying where the skills are to be found and what services are best managed in the public sector and which by private contractors paid for by government (and which for that matter the government should have no part of).
The problem is that our extremely ideological government will not even permit the debate and continues to deny its own failures.
In the case of Mr Grayling, a while back, I did the maths: If he'd been paid £1m a week in each of his ministerial posts to not come to work, it would have the taxpayer saved money!
OK, so that's a little frivolous, but it's emblematic of the record of failure. A record that is only permitted because of the ideological absolutism of the government.
AFZ
It turns out that "yeah, we can do that, take about half an hour. Don't need to come on site" then just doing stuff was more efficient than "thththththth - we'll draw up a minor works schedule and book an engineer for the minimum half day - that'll be a grand please!"
I think, though, that there is a qualitative difference between the government purchasing products or services on the open market from companies that have other customers and where a range of suppliers exist and the weird situation of the likes of Serco that exist almost entirely to tender for outsourcing contracts and have no specific expertise beyond that. It's one thing for the government to, say, put out a tender for 40 new married quarters in Aldershott, where they might get dozens of large developers bidding, and things like running a prison where there is no pool of private sector expertise to draw on.
It was an area of the Labour manifesto that I had some concern about. The devil is always in the detail and I looked at it, and it was about making generics. I'm still not sure if it's a good idea. It's not widely known but the UK government does make drugs. There is a small group at Porton Down that make at least one pharmaceutical (which IIRC is a cancer chemotherapy agent).
As to the wider point, I completely agree. There is a world of difference between getting tenders to build some housing or whatever compared to companies who's entire business model appears to be based on running only large government contracts.
For me, the line is one of natural monopoly. Where a natural monopoly exists, then the default should be public sector, I think.
AFZ
I completely agree with the moral argument there. Conversely I think these examples are also natural monopolies.
AFZ
It's a ridiculous name but PIMS-TS stands for Paediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome, Temporally related to SARS-CoV2.
This has been in the general media, but we are talking about a condition which causes massive, systemic inflammation in children, 2-4 weeks after exposure to SARS-CoV2. This is all new, but we have around 100 cases in the UK reported. Similar numbers in Italy and New York.
The presentation was detailed data on the first 37 cases in the UK. It is indeed in some ways, very like Kawasaki Disease, an inflammatory disease which is well understood.
As with all-things Covid-19 related, there is a lot we do not yet know. This appears to be a rare complication of exposure in children/adolescents. However if the numbers of infections are high enough in the community, then a small number of children who never get ill with Covid-19 itself will go on to develop this life-threatening disease. (Two recorded deaths in the UK).
It does beg the question... should schools go back yet? For the most part the risk is to staff, and families. We are confident, that on-the-whole, children are not at risk of Covid-19. We are just not seeing children get ill the way adults do. Conversely this condition appears to be rare but only affects children. I still think the greatest risk of schools returning is that children can be healthy spreaders.
However, this is a truly new, and not well-understood disease entity. We do not know if schools returning will lead to higher numbers of children in intensive care with PIMS-TS.
AFZ
This in spades.
We recently had a dispute with an incompetent builder.
We were very lucky. We could borrow more money to pay for a solicitor and to pay another builder to clear up the mess and finish the the job in the meantime.
Had we already been at our absolute limit paying for the work in the first place, we'd have been left with a second mortgage and a useless concrete slab where our extension should be.
It isn't right that we could only resolve the situation because we had the money to do so. We need proper access to the justice system regardless of the ability to pay. This will never happen when the only option is the private sector.
Apologise profusely for not having started contact tracing over 2 months ago!
Honestly, that's appalling.
I did read, actually. You didn't just ask that. You asked how you weren't opening schools. In other words, you didn't only reflect on what other jurisdictions were doing, you reflected on your own jurisdiction's inaction.
This made me smile. 'The invasion fleet is massing across the channel! Get me Serco, Capita, and our most recently updated SLA. Oh, and whoever runs Mr Hoare's outfit these days.'
Which is what he's just said he's about to do, isn't it?
It's one thing to say "oh they're not very good, who cares, government outsourcing isn't supposed to be any good!" and another to keep rehiring a company that has defrauded you on a grand scale before.
It was in most of the papers yesterday, but it does seem wobbly. I thought I read last week that there were 24 new cases on one particular day. I'm not sure why London has reduced so much.
Sadly, it is not hypothetical.
Trains were never going to be profitable and health care should not be about profit. Services are where the private industry is going to be weakest as far as the public good. Private contractors should build trains and hospitals, not run them. The important thing that you left out, and the cause of much of the failure in a project, especially when outsourcing, is writing the specification properly and well. IME, the single largest source of contractors taking advantage of the government, and incidences of basic incompetence, are poorly written specifications.
Administering the specification poorly is a strong secondary source of failure.
I thought this quote summed up the accuracy issue pretty well.
Having looked at many of the sources used and particularly for the major epicentres, they seem to be official government (or State) sources. The point about active cases is certainly correct. But I think the major data relating to numbers of cases diagnosed and number of deaths can be relied upon to the same extent as the government sources.
But googling it seems to indicate that it refers to a different phenomenon - in this case that the majority of people are only protected from a temporary infection while a small number are protected from a life-threatening illness.