To think this statement by Matt Hancock is incorrect?

[greenback]

From the BBC today: Mr Hancock said he understood that "people are yearning to know how long this will all last", but that "the answer is entirely dependent on how much people follow the rules on social distancing"

Bur I don't see that there is a direct connection between these two things.

I can see that the lockdown will dampen the spread of the virus, enabling the NHS to cope. It will also mean that the peak (of the first wave of cases) will come sooner rather than later. But that still doesn't tell us how long the lockdown will last. After we've passed the peak, the length of the lockdown is still entirely dependent on an exit strategy that hasn't yet been fully defined, and which is in turn dependent on antibody tests that haven't yet been successfully developed, or on social tracing apps that haven't yet been proven to work. China may have their new infections under control for now (assuming their numbers can be believed) but they still have tighter measures than ours in place and so are a very long way from getting back to normal.

Disclaimer: I didn't vote for this government, but generally think they're doing a good job in difficult circumstances. I think Matt Hancock comes across as genuine and honest. So I'm not making a political point - I just don't think this one statement is correct. Am I missing something?

We - the public - are being blamed for this disaster. And the government is taking no responsibility for this at all.

I disagree. Firstly, I don't think anyone should be 'blamed'. It is a natural disaster. The Government are largely dealing with it well. I've got no time for people who are politically biased against them and are shamelessly seeing it as an opportunity to spread dissolutionment. We need people of all political backgrounds to pull together on this, even if they don't agree with every decision.

Matt Spamcock is talking to us as if we were kids in a primary school

I think he wants to hammer home a simple message - stay at home - and that's fair enough. The public do need to message to be simple. But he needs to be careful that simplifying the message doesn't result in inaccuracies in his language.

I disagree. Firstly, I don't think anyone should be 'blamed'. It is a natural disaster. The Government are largely dealing with it well

That is your opinion.

I disagree with your sentence claiming the government are handling this well. Of course they didn’t cause the coronavirus but they most certainly have not handled this well.

Imagine if we’d had proper contact testing in place, the number of cases would be lower I’m sure. Imagine if central government fully understood the impact of lack of testing on all front line workers (not just NHS staff, but care workers and those that have to work)?

We wouldn’t have so many doctors and nurses infected and inadvertently and unknowingly spreading it to vulnerable patients.

They are not handling it well.

Politics is about being driven by opinion and ideology- which means there are different ways to handle the approach.

I think our approach is flawed. And I’m scared.

The NHS is not coping. We have filled the ICUs, expanded them, filled the expansion and then started nursing patients in operating theatres, and the filled them.

This is not true.

The UK has dramatically expanded its critical care capacity.

As far as I know not one single person has been turned away for reasons of capacity, only because of the usual protocols (weighing the treatment against outcome).

Oh, is it behind a paywall? No I gave you quite a lengthy quote from the chief medical officer using the exact phrase 'herd immunity' in a description of uk strategy

The Chief Medical Officer is an advisor, not a strategist or a politician. After this interview, the Government clarified that herd immunity is not strategy, meaning that it is not something they are trying to accelerate by letting the virus spread unchecked. They needed to clarify that because their political opponents irresponsibly started to equate the concept of herd immunity with eugenics, and were creating panic. But anyone with an ounce of common sense should be able to see that, whatever the formal strategy, herd immunity is still the eventual outcome of thus situation, whether it be via a vaccine or via the slow spread of virus through the population while we wait for one.

I totally agree with you OP.

At some point the non-shielded public will grasp that the death rate for covid19 is something they're willing to contend with. The Government is obfuscating in the interim.

To my way of thinking, the point has always been to match the flow of new infection to NHS capacity, so the absence of utilisation rates is an eye-brow raiser.

Do you work in the NHS @MarginalGain

But i suppose they can’t start an exit strategy until the amount of new cases has got below whatever they deem the necessary figure to be. And that does rely on social distancing compliance.

Imagine if we’d had proper contact testing in place

You may as well imagine that the virus never existed in the first place! The fact is that no government can wave a magic wand and immediately put testing in place where no infrastructure exists for it. Singapore and South Korea got there more quickly because they had it in place for SARs, and Germany already had a big testing industry of its own that could be re-purposed quickly. We didn't have that, and it takes time to put in place.

It's true that, following the SARs outbreak, a previous Government were warned by an independent study that they should be ready for the next pandemic, and did nothing, but Governments are warned about a lot of things that they might need to spend money on. Even if that report had been noticed and headlined by newspapers at the time I don't suppose the public would have taken much interest. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, especially when you can use it as a stick to beat someone with!

Excellent posts, greenback.

Although we do know that only the most critical are being admitted,whereas in Germany they admit and give oxygen to people much earlier and this is believed to account for their lower death rate. We can't do that at the moment so clearly the NHS is struggling

Although we do know that only the most critical are being admitted,whereas in Germany they admit and give oxygen to people much earlier and this is believed to account for their lower death rate. We can't do that at the moment so clearly the NHS is struggling

Can I have a link please?

Totally agree with you greenback

Germany's death rate is thought to be lower simply because they have tested more people. When it is possible to test a greater number of our population, including testing them for whether people have had the virus (not just whether they've got it now) our death rate is likely to appear much lower too.

I'd be equally critical of our response no matter what flavour government we had. I can't see that Corbyn would have done much better, although of course those left wing authoritarian instincts might have come in handy for an early lockdown. We didn't choose early lockdown and testing as a strategy, fine, then what's the point of panicking halfway through and flailing round in another direction? Politics is the point. Herd immunity was clearly the strategy but politicians panicked about the public response. They would be crucified as the death toll mounted. So now we have a shit version of lockdown that is continually undermined by the words and actions of our own senior politicians, so we are all left stumbling round and it all turns out to be your neighbours fault.

I was actually a Boris Johnson fan before he submitted to the political pressure and bottled it.

I don't blame the government for the poor comparison to the Asian countries, but I have plenty of criticism for the obvious flaws in the lockdown strategy (all neatly explained by greenback).

I thought they meant that lockdown will end sooner if people listen and follow the rules because the cases infection and the number of deaths will be lower. The curve will start to drop and the NHS won't be unable to cope with two many cases at the same time. Simply less people will get it.

Yanbu. It's not dependent on Bob going for a careful 3 mile run.

It's about the inadequate ppe in hospitals and the community. And the medical and caring staff who will continue to catch it and spread it.

We didn't choose early lockdown and testing as a strategy, fine, then what's the point of panicking halfway through and flailing round in another direction?

I think their strategy always included a gradual lockdown, the only question was when the various steps would be taken, and in response to what triggers. I think they ended up bringing it in sooner than they hoped, partly because of the increasing infection rates, but also because of the increasing sense of public panic. Whether the panic was justified or not isn't really the issue - the fact is that people were panicking and needed Government intervention to enable them to stay at home. But there are also huge numbers of people who don't want to stay at home, and the longer they are locked down, the mire noise they will make and the less compliant they will be. As a pp said, at some point the clamour to get back to work will outweigh the clamour to stay at home. So long as the hospitalisation rate remains below the available quantities of beds/staff/ventilators/ppe that will be a political turning point. The Government obviously needs to make sure that the testing infrastructure and vaccine research has progressed sufficiently by that point to help justify the decision.

This same Mr Hancock who flouted his own advice re social distancing?
Who opened the Nightingale whilst clearly symptomatic to ensure he got his moment of glory?
Who had clear advice from WHO on isolation for symptoms but chose to ignore that for himself and in the guidance? How many has Boris infected, do we think?
Same Mr Hancock who refused to purchase EU ventilators but is now flying them in from China? Who oversaw a contract going to the Brexit funding Dyson without anything to sell?
No, I don’t believe his words. Straplines and false reassurance.

I thought they meant that lockdown will end sooner if people listen and follow the rules because the cases infection and the number of deaths will be lower. The curve will start to drop and the NHS won't be unable to cope with two many cases at the same time. Simply less people will get it.

Sure, but what they're not talking about is the if the proportion of the public having had covid19 is significantly off current estimates, every single input in their model changes and the strategy is upended.

Consider it this way. If you have the UK population on lockdown and there's excess NHS capacity, this is a gross mismanagement of resources - given that tens of millions of people have to be exposed to covid19 pre-immunisation and there will be waves ahead.

So long as the hospitalisation rate remains below the available quantities of beds/staff/ventilators/ppe that will be a political turning point.

Those ventilators (when available now due to full and overflowing ITUs) need oxygen to be of any use. There are serious concerns about oxygen supplies and not just in Watford now. Many trusts have escalated the risk of running out.

An example would be Portsmouth- huge hospital with increased capacity for ventilation. The ITU full. The HDU full. Patients now ventilated on the respiratory medical ward. The hospital is now under capacity for optimal critical care with non ITU trained staff caring for the very sick.

Despite government platitudes about retired doctors and nurses a nurse returning after working a lifetime in gynaecology isn’t going to be familiar with the level of care needed. A returning dermatologist isn’t a huge amount of use either.

People might be bored of lockdown but that’s tough. They need to consider others. Their clamouring will risk prolonging the crisis.
The sick need the opportunity to be treated safely.

Cherrypavlova all of that should be expressed via transparent metrics to the government. What you're saying is absolutely no different than what the OP is saying. If hospitals are indeed at capacity, or uncomfortably near it, then that's an argument in favour of stricter social distancing measures.

When people say things like it's 'tough' that people are fed up of lockdown, they don't really get it. When the public gets fed up, that's it. The policy must ultimately reflect the will of the people.

I admit to feeling utterly cynical about the whole thing after reading this article. It makes a mockery of the whole strategy - which was, I thought, to protect the most vulnerable as well as preserve treatment capacity. Family members are no longer permitted to visit their elderly relatives in care, because of 'the rules'. But this horror is permitted.
www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/02/uk-care-home-bosses-threaten-quit-over-return-coronavirus-patients?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR1l1N3DfijgQp4G0kXXfqJQc55Ku0IlDHP2xWvEuFHyPNREal6xQIyTZm4#Echobox=1585956735

@skeptile don't let one article swing you judgement. Remember that the Guardian's editorial policy will always put a negative spin on Government policy. Have you thought about what would happen to those elderly residents if they test positive and their care homes won"t accept them? If they stay in hospital the caring issues and risks are exactly the same as if they they return to their homes, except they would also be taking up bed spaces needed by symptomatic, sicker patients.

Of course the government's goal is to have enough tests to test just about everybody by the end of the month, and care home advice will evolve between now and then, but until enough tests have been manufactured and delivered they need to prioritise who is tested. That leads to tough choices. Should NHS staff be prioritised over very sick patients? Should asymptomatic elderly returnees to care homes be prioritised over NHS staff? Just thank your lucky stars it's not you who has to make the decisions!

@Greenback
Well explained.
I agree the Gvt was forced to implement school closure and lockdown too early because of public panic and individuals self/isolating as a result of that panic. In the school I work, so many teachers were panicking and self/isolating that the workload on other ex was just too great, but more significantly, it panicked the children and their parents too, making the sudden forced closures before there was a proper plan in place eg for public examinations.
The lockdown is not to stop the virus but to protect the holy 'NHS'. In other countries the Health service is a public service accountable for errors in planning. In this country it is a sacred totem and all its deficiencies blamed on 'the Government'
Blaming the government is otiose.