To be very concerned that Boris Johnson said this

[Worriedmum54321]

From the Guardian:
Responding to the argument that a more stringent lockdown should have been imposed sooner, he said: “Don’t forget, it’s a very very demanding thing to ask a population to do – very tough – and so I think it was completely right to make our period of lockdown coincide as far as possible with the peak of the epidemic.”

There has always been good government communication from hand washing to lockdown and the daily briefings

Has there?

Do you remember the 'trial balloons' about the elderly people being asked to self isolate?

It took a lot of pressure to get the daily briefings. Trump was doing them way before Johnson did.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/mar/15/boris-johnson-to-hold-daily-coronavirus-press-briefings

Calls for a daily ministerial press conference intensified over the weekend, following at least three incidents of Whitehall giving out contradictory messages over coronavirus, with the uncertainty compounded by the fact that some key reporting was based on unattributable sources.

On Friday morning Vallance gave an interview defending the government’s decision not to ban large sporting events – only for No 10 to brief that evening that a ban would soon be implemented.

In his interview Vallance also spoke about the potential advantage of the UK acquiring some element of herd immunity to coronavirus. But his comments triggered a fierce backlash on social media, with people claiming it amounted to evidence that the government was happy for large numbers of people to get coronavirus. On Sunday Matt Hancock, the health secretary, had to distance himself from Vallance, saying “herd immunity is not our goal or policy”.

I guess we remember what we want to remember.

why not leave it to the scientists? Aren't we all in the best hands that way?

It's not that simple. Of course politicians should make decisions based on good science, but scientists can only present information, they can't decide on priorities.

We all did this. When the government saw the country were ignoring calls for social distancing they should have put the lockdown in earlier. But the fact is that people chose to ignore social distancing rules, chose to crowd into parks, chose to go to Cheltenham which is not a compulsory event. Why did people go? Because they wanted to. And at the same time people were crowding into supermarkets and stockpiling. Why stockpile if they didn't think something serious was happening? And a lot of elderly people chose to completely ignore the government line (my mother included, thinks she's immortal by all accounts) And since lockdown 9000 people have been issued with fines and are still choosing to ignore the rules and those are just the people who've been caught. The government's actions are part of this but we are all responsible for our own actions and the consequences.

You can’t prepare for the fact though that some people are stupid and will not follow rules. The government can’t be held accountable for that. There’s no reasoning with stupid unfortunately.

The government's actions are part of this but we are all responsible for our own actions and the consequences

Many people trust the Government and will trust them to do the right thing. People who were trying to lockdown and do the right thing have been affected by the people who went to these events - and by the irresponsibilty of the Government to let them go ahead.

We are all affected by these decisions - even those of us who were trying to do the right thing.

The government can’t be held accountable for that

The Government can be held accountable for the message it was sending out in March.

I remember lots of occasions before the daily briefings where one minister said one thing and was immediately contradicted by another.

And as for all the sneering on this thread about how the Government were following proper scientific advice when timing the lockdown, and how us pretty little women on MN can't possibly understand all the issues involved: I also seem to recall that just before the lockdown the scientists turned around and said "shit, we got the numbers wrong" and then produced a set of numbers very similar to those being produced by the MN amateur modellers. Which was what initiated the lockdown far earlier than had originally been planned.

I am also VERY concerned by the makeup of SAGE: why have been Dominic Cummings and Ben Warner been sitting on the group and helping form the scientific advice offered to the Government? I find it equally odd that the CMOs of Wales, Scotland and NI are not permitted a voice in the proceedings.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing

All of what oakmaiden said
And we didn't need hindsight. Enough people on here were saying exactly what was going to happen as early as February half term, those voices haven't since been deleted if you care to check.

The mistake is insufficient PPE. Other governments made that mistake, so hindsight is wonderful. My medical student DS in Copenhagen and paramedic DSIL in Germany have been saying the same about the situation in their countries.

My impression is the mountains have been moved by lots of dedicated people working phenomenally hard and it's very moving to see. To be moaning about it from the comfort of your armchair when you do not have better scientific expertise or information than anyone else seems a bit pointless and unhelpful.

These criticisms of the government aren't hindsight. People were saying the same in March as other countries took distancint measures and then locked down and we didn't when we got to the same stage in the cycle. They were also saying this about the lack of testing.

I agree OP: the timing of the peak is a function of the timing of the lockdown in countries where lockdown has happened and been successful. Johnson is being dim.

Previous posters have spoken about the public being unready for lockdown two weeks earlier than it was imposed. I would agree that at that point, many were really dismissive about the virus - despite mounting evidence to the contrary. However, had the government and media communicated clearly at that point, they could have got the public on board with lockdown. Pushing the blame onto the general public is pretty pathetic.

There are lots of reports about disagreements within SAGE; the scientists don't have crystal balls & they live in the community so hear about their universities going bankrupt, their teenagers unable to start training, their relatives losing jobs, the anxiety of their elderly neighbours, the courts unable to function. I'm sure the scientists have struggled to find consensus, too.

**

I am not pretending to know what should have happened. I will readily admit to not having a grasp on all the finer details of epidemiology and economics, as well as not knowing the legal implication of various measures.

I am, however, still entitled to hold the government to account when they lie or try to hide the truth.

posted too soon (son is nagging me to go and play)

It was obvious significantly in advance that the writing was, as they say, on the wall and action needed to be taken. I was actually hopeful that the government were going to be taking the right actions at the right times, having access to information we didn't. That hope was rather dashed by the "Oh fuck, we got it wrong" from the Imperial College.

I wonder what they were thinking when they didn't prevent Cheltenham taking place.
Will Johnson get asked this question?

The only government sourced "explanation" I've ever heard for this (and the marathons, concerts, matches etc etc) is that the virus only spread to those you are right next to. Therefore a mass event is, according to this theory, no worse than a gathering small local pub.
Of course you can drive a ten wheel truck through the holes in this reasoning: A typical pub has perhaps 25 people in attendance. Not 250,000. That's 10,000 small pubs. Why not prevent 10,000 extra special pubs especially opening for a three day event in the midst of a pandemic? Youre not forcing them to shut them - just preventing them opening. Much easier. Same goes for all the other mass events. That's, say, 100,000o of small pubs which were given the go ahead to open their doors to the public in what we already knew to be a pandemic situation.

Unfortunately i lost faith in most of the scientists at the briefing when they started putting some kind of political spin on things.
One has stated a few time that care home deaths would be around 10 percent! A minister then announced it was currently at 1/6 - oh lets change to fractions now so no one will know.
One also stated on more than one occasion that we were tracking france. France's data included care homes ( the uk did not at this point). Either a political spin is being put on the figures or i know more about the graphs then a scientist ( not a chance with my maths skills).

This has worried me? Why were they always trying to compare favourrably? Is was very distasteful. Strangely recently this is happening less now.

You can’t prepare for the fact though that some people are stupid and will not follow rules. The government can’t be held accountable for that. There’s no reasoning with stupid unfortunately.

In fact the UK in general has massively OVER complied compared to what data scientists predicted.

So trying to place any blame on the general public for not complying is ridiculous.

HOWEVER I think the massive problem is that the govt played down the longevity and severity of what will happen in life after lockdown and talk like now we're past what is apparently one single peak it's all downhill (or uphill?!) from here, which is why compliance has been so good.

And we didn't need hindsight. Enough people on here were saying exactly what was going to happen as early as February half term, those voices haven't since been deleted if you care to check.

And many on here have been predicting the end of the world and a return to the 1930's since 2010.

They have also been spectacularly wrong on every election since 2010, so it is hindsight to say that MN as a whole was correct and what the government did was wrong.

You are asuming that if we did x we would be at y which is not the case as no body can say for certain yet as we are not out of it and nor do we have the whole data to properly asses this.

As others have said, a lot of this is just because the shade of government in power isn't the one most people like rather than objective analysis.

Johnson presumably hoped we wouldn't spot his circular reasoning/begging the question

Power corrupts, governments will always lie if we let them, it's our job to examine them and hold them to account... that's what it means to be a responsible citizen isn't it?
That's what we doing here, talking it over trying to examine things and seeing what's really going on.

As others have said, a lot of this is just because the shade of government in power isn't the one most people like rather than objective analysis.

As I strongly suspect your view is clouded as well.

The Government have made a lot of mistakes that were easily forseeable.

They do not have the humility to admit them - they just say they were following the science.

I wonder if we will get to see the science advice about large public events?

ExactlyB1, it is important we call out crap when we see it.

Still reading the whole thread, but this post by DodgyTrousers is bloody hilarious:
Nope. Completed agree with him as do many others.. Obviously not on mumsnet though- the notoriously left wing site who hate the Tories...

Translation: I agree with him because I'm a Tory and will blindly support everything Tory he does because I'm a Tory and he's a Tory and left wing people are only disagreeing with Johnson because they're lefties and not because they think he's taking the wrong approach.
Are people really this fucking tribal and devoid of critical thinking skills?

• @Justaboy* i totally agree with you re traffic. I leave for work before 7am but i am also on the road at what would have bern been finishing time for a lot of people .I live rurally so go along one main road part of my journey and traffic has definitely increased from start of lockdown . The village i work in has definitely got busier, my colleagues have noticed the same .To the orginal should the lockdown been earlier possibly but given what insee now i doubt it would have worked . I am honestly dreading a huge spike given the amount of People i saw out Easter weekend.I have always wanted a harsher lockdown more like Spain and Italy .I work with really vunerable people i want to keep them safe .