Our government has dealt with the Coronacrisis so badly.

[pontypridd]

Did we even need to lockdown?

Newsnight suggests that it wasn't necessary.

Perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad had the lockdown been managed well. But now millions of people in this country will have their lives ruined. Millions will lose their lives as a result of this mismanaged lockdown.

We are coming out of this now with more mixed messages and confusion. People are taking it upon themselves to decide to end lockdown - as the government, once again, fails to take the lead.

I feels afraid and scared to live here. I don't trust that our government will ever know what they are doing or be able to protect us.

worldsworststepfordwife - i think sick pay and the bradford factor thing which makes infected people come to work to spread it around in case they lose their jobs have a lot to aswer for.
In the case of carehomes some staff are also worried that noone will turn up if they dont.

Don't believe anyone can judge any of this until its over!
But I do trust Chris Whitty!

Other countries aren’t envious, they’re looking at us open mouthed in shock at the incompetence of us.

Tens of thousands dead. That should be all the papers are talking about. Instead we’re getting “Happy Monday” and hooray we can have picnics again.

We should have locked down sooner. We should have done mass testing. We should have had enough PPE. We should have had enough ventilators. We knew this was coming for at least a month - had we done that we would have been in a much better position. Meanwhile we are talking about lifting restrictions when over 500 are dying EVERY SINGLE DAY. We still do not have a handle on this, not one bit. The whole thing has been a farce. We are, along with the US, a perfect example of what not to do in a pandemic.

What is worrying me is the volume of new cases each day. 5000 ish- even in lock down. Look on worldometer.com for the stats. They are pretty grim.

Grateful to be in Scotland where we have had clear guidance and in lockdown for another three weeks. One son in Germany had to travel back there from overseas and was met and quarantined immediately, is very impressed with their precautions. His neighbours got his shopping and left on doorstep. Another relative who works offshore was tested and isolated before going to work. We adhere to guidelines and so far in this area have had very few cases.but expect tabloids and press to slag further lockdown as rubbish.

When the second wave hits it's going to be carnage, if the strain has mutated. All this is known. But still I get the feeling that the government is fixated on 'Spanish flu' stories and herd immunuty. It's gambling away people's lives and futures.

As PP said, care home staff need support, sick pay, PPE and better pay and conditions & they need it now.

The thing is, we're so use to this the Government making a shambles of most things, that our usual reaction is to just sigh and move on. But this is a a different level, over 30,000 life's have been lost, how many of those could have been saved had proper structures in place to cope with a pandemic. It's all on them.

The awful mess up with PPE, getting it late or not at all, letting football matches, Cheltenham and concerts go ahead with thousands upon thousands of people mixing, while other countries were bringing in lockdown.
Boris saying he shook many hands of people who had the virus, the mixed messages about not going to the pub but leaving them open anyway, not enough testing and tracing, the Nightingale hospital opening then closing again, and just yesterday getting PPE in from Turkey which were faulty, on and on it goes.
It's a national disgrace and an absolute tragedy for people who have lost loved ones
The country deserves better than this.

This ‘herd immunity’ strategy at the beginning is what caused this mess in the first place. The virus would never have taken such a grip if we’d hadn’t embarked such a ridiculous, bonkers, dangerous, plan.

The government is advised by so called medical experts - blame them for the advice they gave not. The government which acted on it

I agree the lockdown has not been effective at containing the virus. It was never the aim which was to slow it down. Total mismanagement from the beginning. The lies. Patrick valance is on record on twitter as calling it herd immunity in an interview whatever the claims now state.

Ivf
I don’t believe that for a minute. The advisors were told to go that way. They will have presented a range of scenarios. But as boris refused to take precautions and listen to the puppet master, Cummings, there was only one way for the government to go.

I'm mostly angry about the dishonesty to distract the general public on what's really going on.
Tory's say let's build these huge Nightingale hospitals getting huge media coverage from the press when the real story is infected elderly patients are not being admitted to hospitals just kept in care homes spreading the infections.
Tory's say we have all the PPE (6 weeks back) it's just a distribution issue when really they didn't keep enough stock. Then the big stunt of flying RAF to pick up stock in Turkey that's apparently not fit for purpose and the BIGGER issue we should be all talking about is the fact that the EU invited the UK to procure stock of PPE months back reasons for not joining in incompetence or worse.
Tory's say the numbers of deaths are decreasing (3 weeks ago) but at the time weren't including deaths in the community or nursing home deaths.
And testing... Well that never happened in meaningful way did it. Let's ignore the WHO Sher what would they know! We gave up too soon. NHS and care home staff couldn't even get tested and the advice to the general public is just stay at home until you can't breath nearly and the go to hospital. Then we were told they would roll out immunity tests for everyone (6 weeks ago) prior to even checking the tests are reliable. Oh and Matt Hannock and his 100000 tests a day what a load of shite.
So instead of the government being honest and having a grown up discussion with us about what's really happening we are being lied to. They think we the general public are stupid and we are in a way because we voted for these clowns.

This latest crisis has shown once again that some people are only capable of criticism. No matter what the government does, they will be looking like hound dogs for anything to point out and pick on. Whatever decision is made, it's wrong before it's even made.

It's tiring especially as criticism is never scientifically founded.

We needed lockdown earlier. We (that is Westminster) initially had a shit "herd immunity strategy " which two of the other nations threatened to divert from (namely Wales and Scotland) forcing Johnson's position. It seems the most likely explanation for Johnson's change of heart.

It was obvious in January where this was going. The UK had the chance to bring in an early lockdown, quarantine and closely monitor returning holidaymakers, close our borders otherwise. They didn't. Boris's government did nothing until it was too late and are therefore accountable for more than 30,000 unnecessary deaths. Yes, it is completely disgraceful and unforgiveable. This lockdown we have isn't a proper lockdown so hasn't been as effective as it could have been, and has exacerbated the economic damage. There is no "get out of jail quick" card now.

I don't think we can cast any evaluation until it's over, even then,only those in power know. I honestly don't know which country has it right.
I know there's countries with low numbers, how do they get out of lock down? Wait for a vaccine? Is everyone's stats generated in exactly the same way? I think there's too many variables between countries. What I do know....I'll be remaining home untill it's safe to return to normal.

Wales 8s looking at the same scientific advice as boris, and their education secretary said the science does not advise schools go back in june. Now boris has admitted that England may move faster out of lockdown than wales and Scotland. Inam so upset and worried about sending the kids back to school.

I’m baffled with people claiming the Government have done a great job. Would love to hear their reasoning.

For me the locked down too late, too slowly, giving weak “guidelines” that people twisted to fit their agenda.

dontdisturbmenow would you care to point out one good decision made by the government regarding this crisis? Just one would do.

I agree, this government have shown a horiffic lack of leadership and an almost criminal level of incompetence.

I dont believe the government are responsible for the spreading and worsening of this virus. Every individual who floats the rules is responsible! Hindsight is marvellous but really... those saying, the government should have had enough ventilators, PPE etc.. how do you plan for something like this? Where do you store all this equipment which will become outdated and useless pretty swiftly if not used? Theres a continued no win situation, on one hand the government prepares for the worsening of a situation by opening emergency units, then they're moaned about for bot using the nightingale.

How do you put a country on full lockdown in the way china did when we are not a communist country?

Bashing the government is easy to do but I'm sure none of us could have grasped the straw in a better way! Maybe we should have taken the Korean model and then had people having tantrums about their personal privacy invasions. I'm sure I've since read a thread about the new NHS app and some kicking back on mumsnet. The swedish model to not implement a strong lock down? more loaning with even more deaths but hey our economy may be in a healthier state. We're in one of lives learning curves, the future is changing for all of us. Sometimes we just have to suck it up and make the best of what we have.

One thing we are all guilty of at the moment is dragging down everyone's mental health with our negativity. I would just like people to look around and be grateful for.what they have and who they have. I say this from having lost a relative to this damn virus, we cannot give him the send off he deserves next week and instead we can only send a floral tribute. But hey, he is now just another statistic!!!

how do you plan for something like this?

Well, you could, say, run an operation to see how the country would fare in a pandemic. And you could learn lessons from the problems revealed, rather than quietly binning them. You could even call it something, maybe, umm, Exercise Cygnus.

I'm sure none of us could have grasped the straw in a better way!

The thing is, though, none of us (I assume) ran for Parliament with lots of promises about our competence to run the country.

The comparator is not us but other countries, and you don't have to go to Korea for that purpose. You only have to look at all those European countries that have managed to have lower death rates.

Johnson and Hancock claiming that the rest of the world is envious of us would be funny if it weren't so horrific. The concept of people in countries like Germany and New Zealand weeping with jealousy at our magnificent death toll is simply ludicrous.