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AIBU?

We got what we deserved

9 replies

Whathastheworldbecome · 22/06/2020 13:07

I’m not suggesting for a second that people deserve to die or anyone get hurt with the current pandemic.

Myself and my family were discussing the approach taken by the government in response to covid - as led by the scientific advice. We are of the opinion that there are disparities in the scientific advice however we believe that the scientists have given the government the most stringent measures to follow in terms of social distancing etc.

If I were a member of the scientific community advising the government I would do the same.

Advise for the worse case scenario and advise the most stringent measures to protect citizens. This is probably because there will be an enquiry into Covid/ government responses at a later date. If there are an increase in deaths then in an enquiry the government are likely to throw blame onto the scientific advisers using them as a scapegoat; and the advisers know this. At the minute the government has been advised in the uk to keep the 2 metres rule but business, economy, mental health, child education are having to be prioritised, and rightly so.

The way things currently stand, the scientists have advised stringent measures and if the government chooses to deviate away from the advice then it’s on them.

We are of the opinion that we have gotten the government response to the pandemic that, we as a society, deserve.

Obviously it is a complex issue but we seem to want an enquiry into everything, almost public humiliation and blame to be put onto someone. It’s because of this that we have gotten a response to the pandemic that involves really strict measures. The scientists were afraid to advise the government to be more lax on certain measures for fear of blame if it all went wrong.

I’ve no doubt a public enquiry into Covid will follow at some stage. We all want someone to blame or lessons to be learned and someone will get hung out to dry.

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formerbabe · 22/06/2020 13:12

Yes, because if you're just thinking from a public health point of view you would have the most stringent measures you could but the government has to consider public health combined with the economy and various other factors. It's a balancing act.

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TheDailyCarbuncle · 22/06/2020 13:16

I think the response to the whole situation has been incredibly cowardly, centred around arse-covering and pandering to anxiety rather than any attempt to look clearly at the situation and make sensible, well-balanced decisions. I've been shocked at the extent to which people have been willing and even eager to bin their whole lives in a panic to protect against a threat which, for most people, is so minuscule as to be almost non-existent.

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contrmary · 22/06/2020 13:18

Everything is a blame game, that's the way politics works. Don't listen to the public and you're aloof, listen to the public and you've made a U-turn because you are incompetent. Unfortunately the media and the opposition solely target weakness and mistakes, because it's in their interests to. This doesn't make for a balanced argument.

A lot of the criticism of the handling of the crisis is unfair because it assesses the decisions made in the past with the knowledge available now. If the government could see into the future they'd have done things differently - stockpiled huge amounts of PPE last year, created the vaccine and implemented it with the flu jab last autumn. But those things would have required knowledge not available at the time (in the case of the vaccine, still not available).

Listening to the daily press conferences a while back (I've mostly given up on them!) it was frustrating that most of the questions from media weren't focused on solving the problems and mitigating them, they were frankly idiotic questions like "When will there be enough PPE?" (impossible to answer, because one cannot know how much will ever be needed) or "will you apologize to X, Y or Z?" (trying to place blame rather than solve anything).

It's not just COVID though, is it? Whether it's the black power skirmishes, or the climate change riots last year, SOMEONE must be blamed for everything. Just as long as it's someone else, not the protesters. It's never their fault, never their own ingrained racism or overuse of the planet's resources.

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countbackfromten · 22/06/2020 13:19

Over 40,000 people are dead and excess deaths are higher than 60,000. Lives have been changed beyond belief for many of those who have survived. Without the Herculean efforts of so many that death toll would be much higher.

We owe it to all those affected to have a public enquiry and learn real lessons from this. Because there will be a next pandemic and as a country our handling of the current one has been a disgrace.

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violetscone · 22/06/2020 13:21

I didn’t vote for this shit show. So no.

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milveycrohn · 22/06/2020 13:29

The modelling did not take into account the following;

That the NHS would be able to increase ICU space (nightingale hospitals, and the rather contentious issue of cancelling 'non-essential' operations and making over operating theatres into ICU space, and the second contentious issue of discharging elderly patients to Care Homes)

The second thing not taken into account, is that as our knowledge of the virus has grown, so has methods of treatment. The obvious example is that it seems to be shown that earlier intervention with oxygen had better outcomes than later intervention with ventilators.
I could mention more.

That said, I think the Gov had no choice but to Lockdown, but the reason for the Lockdown seems to have morphed into something else.
Original reason was to 'flatten the spike', etc. Now it seems to be to avoid infection altogether.

I am not sure I believe all the figures for deaths, as not every death was tested. However, I have looked at the ONS site for total deaths, and there is clearly a spike in the number of deaths (from Covid and also from untreated other things)

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michelle1504 · 22/06/2020 14:03

I was discussing this yesterday with a colleague. I don't think the government were strict enough initially, it was more "we advise" this and "we advise" that. Other countries have been much more strict than us and the citizens have largely followed the rules. Perhaps we got more advice and guidance as opposed to rules that must be strictly adhered to because sadly, this is a country who sticks two fingers up to authority at any given opportunity and would be very unlikely to adhere to any rules. And if the government had tried to step in to force these rules against people, there would have been anarchy, the usual types screeching about how their human rights were being taken away. Therefore perhaps the government did things the way they did them. Also ironically, the same people who don't adhere to guidance and do what they want are among the people who are likely blaming the government for how they have handled the crisis.

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travellinglighter · 22/06/2020 14:05

I’m sorry but there is one stark fact staring at us with regards to the government’s handling. The death rate. You say 40000 buts it’s actually 60000. They had more warning than most, they could have learned from others and they have ploughed their own furrow. The latest thing, the “WORLD CLASS” app is yet another sign of incompetence. There was an app ready to go but Dom’s mate had a better one but unfortunately it harvested commercial data from users so Apple and Google wouldn’t sign off on it and now we’re not getting an app until the autumn.

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Midrangecolours · 22/06/2020 14:08

I wa

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