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.”

@chomalungma no worries

A guy, drunk, at 1am, explaining why we didn't need to lock down earlier

Thanks.

No problem

Watching from Mexico, I do think the UK was too slow to shut down. We shut down at when there were just over a hundred cases, but we still have another month to go, so we'll see how we get on. I have relatives in various parts of the world and everyone is complaining about the people who aren't observing the lockdown properly, so I presume that is the nature of human society.

I do think it is odd for politicians to be pronouncing on health issues. The epidemiologists do need to coordinate with politicians, to juggle health needs with the needs of the economy, but it is much more reassuring to get advice and information straight from epidemiologists.

instead of picking the ones that suited their 'economy over lives' thinking.
There is no such thing as economy over lives. Economy IS lives. Poverty will kill people when we have to repay all this money. The magic money tree exists but it only creates money now that needs to be paid back later - it can't create money out of nothing forever.

MSF are tweeting categorically that Spain had 16k care home deaths.

Hi, just a reminder that personal attacks are against our Talk Guidelines - we've had to delete quite a few here. Please keep within the guidelines, if we have to remove too many posts then we'll need to remove the thread.

Still talking like that's the one and only peak too, with fuck all tangible track and test in place...

Ah I see @JulietTango

You do realise that he also stated that we went into lockdown earlier in the cycle than most other European countries? Forgot to mention that one OP? I don't mind debate, but selection of the facts with a pre-baked agenda helps no-one.

@Leafyhouse, France, Spain, Italy and Germany to name four large European countries all went into lockdown earlier. Ireland technically went into lockdown four days later than the UK but it had taken more measures earlier than the UK beginning 12 March such as large gatherings. Some Italian experts being ahead of UK in the spread warned the UK to lock down earlier as they wished they had. Our govt chose not to follow that advice. As someone has written soon after the start of the thread (sorry not read past first page) a peak would have still have happened if we had locked down earlier but at a lower figure.

Also I understand that lockdown alone is not enough. As well as improving capacity in hospital wards and for equipment like ventilators there should have also been from the start a focus on building up good testing and tracing capacity. Yet around mid March the UK stopped testing, tracing and quarantining in the community whilst Germany say have been working on building capacity in this area since January and never stopped testing in the community.

Good testing, tracing and quarantining need to be in place when lockdown is eased to hopefully help the spread not rise too much again until a vaccine or medical treatments that would at least ameliorate the severity of the disease are developed which I know is still a long way away. I know no government is going to do everything perfectly at a time like this and also the best assessment can only be made once the pandemic is over, but it seems to me the UK govt will not be one of the governments other countries will look to as a good example of
pursuing a food strategy in the first couple of months after WHO declared near the end of January there was a novel virus outbreak in China that was transmitting human to human.

*typo above, ‘good strategy’ not ‘food strategy’

Can anyone tell me in the care home and community deaths that are now being included in the daily virus death rate tally are people suspected to have coronavirus as well as testing positive included, or it is only those who somehow managed to get a test outside hospital and tested postive? Because if it is the latter then as testing was still fairly low when they would have got the virus the community and care home figure would still be lower than the true figure.

I didn't understand his point at all. I am not saying it was wrong necessarily, but I could not make sense of it and I have been really trying to follow this!

The timing of the peak is a function of the timing of lockdown, the peak was never destined to happen at a certain time that we needed to fit lockdown around. Whether we end this first phase with a hundred dead or fifty thousand dead, we have still only just begun on the road on this pandemic. We haven't had extra cases and deaths in order to gain meaningful immunity.

The only possible explanation I can think of is if he was referring to behavioural science based advice that people would not comply, but it still doesn't make sense.

@Guylan

As far as I know it's any death certificate which mentions covid. I have no idea of the criteria for mentioning covid though

Also I agree OP, earlier lockdown would surely have meant an earlier peak, a lower peak, a shorter or looser lockdown needed to get R down, fewer deaths, and little menaningful difference in immunity so far as it impacts our options.

"The timing of the peak is a function of the timing of lockdown"
Precisely, I've no idea what he's on about. I suspect he doesn't either.

He should have looked at what New Zealand did and done the same here. The UK and NZ have the same advantage and they made the most of that whereas Johnson was too weak willed to do it.

There is no comparison whatsoever between the U.K. & New Zealand. NZ is a geographically isolated country with a population around half the size of that of Greater London, in a country 10% larger than the U.K. NZ has one large city, and no global hub airport.

If you want to criticise the U.K. government’s performance during the pandemic, (392 deaths per million) then use a sensible comparator, such as Germany (78 deaths per million). Source : Statista.com

Oh for goodness sake. Another OP who can't grasp the issues involved.

Pray tell us all your highly expert views and statistical model analysis on human & economic behaviour, disease spread patterns and how pandemic peaks work.

Please do enlighten us then @Sparticuscaticus!

If you can't, which is fair enough if you aren't an expert either, then think of it this way. The statement OP is questioning was not made by an expert, not by Chris Whitty or by an another scientist commenting from elsewhere. If it had been, I would be much further down the road of assuming I was failing to understand things. I still have not said it was categorically wrong, just that it needs clarification as it appears to be incorrect. For all you know Chris Whitty and other experts heard it and thought 'doh' not quite on it Boris.

Thanks @JulietTango

@leafyhouse, reading your comment again I see you said UK went into lockdown earlier in the cycle than many other European countries, so I misunderstood as I thought I had read you say UK went into lockdown before other countries. Do you have any links for that with more details? Thank you.

There was no need for years and years of austerity, but don't worry the lowest paid and the young will be paying for all the bail outs for at least the next twenty years. Oh and then in December we have a no deal Brexit. Any thought of getting this economy on track is definately out the window!

Imagine being this economically illiterate, I will put my house on your being a proponent of UBI

You do realise that those putting the focus on future generations re the bailout was because of the labour government, if we include PFI it even adds more to your anti tory stance.

It should be noted that for the past 12 years MN has been completely wrong with regards to politics and generally public opinion, and with benefit of history has been completely wrong on the supposedly impending financial doom on multiple occasions.

That could be wake up call for some, it will be brushed aside as trolls for the most though.

The fact remains, political discussion on MN is not representative of the UK and has been consistently wrong for over a decade.

justanotherlurker, apart from your comment about PFI which I agree was costly and clearly a big mistake the rest of which you say can be challenged but I am too tired to try this evening especially as once again your input is rude and condescending.

Can't compare figures like fit like as not all countries are recording the same that was also explained today and a quick google tells you this as well .

Also stop comparing New Zealand with a population of about 5 million in a country a similar size to us
You can't compare like that

@leafyhouse, I found this article with two helpful tables on the timings of various lockdown measures in a few European countries using the measure of when they happened after the 3rd death from CV. UK on most began the latest, albeit some of the measures were only a day or so later than Italy, France and Spain. However, as the spread started rising later in the UK than France Italy and Spain and some experts from these countries told the UK not to make the mistakes they did when they were at the point UK was later on it doesn’t speak well of the UK govt’s choices.