One thing Govt has learnt from NASA

And that's new management.

The endless delays on the original Shuttle project are now largely forgotten. But at the time the style of dealing with such government agency failure was know as "doing a NASA".

The trick was not to announce each bit of bad news as it came long. Instead you stored them up and got them all out of the way at one time.

Hence the first flight dates for the shuttle would go back in jumps every so often.

A similar thing is happening with Swine Flu in the UK. The HPA is in no rush to issue a day by day set of updates. every week or so will will get sudden jumps in figures.

Now the cause of preventing panic is a good one - so their actions are not necessarily irresponsible. But they are also very convenient for the failing state organisation that is managing this outbreak.

Many of us are now getting first hand stories of the mess that handling swine flu has become. Some people get Tamiflu - others don't ( different GPs - same town ).

One person I heard of yesterday had tried 4 different health care contact points (NHS direct, GP etc ) to get help for his wife who showed symptoms of Swine flu and has MS. Eventually he had to refuse to leave a hospital before they would issue any.

Health care people I know report confusion and a lack of information.

And the governments response ? To send their minions on camera to say we are best prepared. ( As ever they ignore specifics ).