To think the U.K. should have just shut the boarders in March

[Lardlizard]

Surely that would have saved the country millions

@x2boys

But what about all the people on here and IRL who were insistent that " they needed a holiday " in the summer so flew everywhere ,yes cases may have been low in the summer ,but suddenly all the kids where back in school and cases sky rocketed in the North West anyway , hindsight is a wonderful thing but people need to take some personal responsibility too.

Rates didn't rise after foreign hols in August, most people were going to areas with low infection rates. Most people would be outside in sunny clims. However, why wasn't there testing in place for returnees?

When schools went back, infection rates rose, just as they did with Uni students, with little or no mitigation in place.
People had no say in this so could not exercise "personal responsibility"

The WHO said an age ago that there are 3 main modes of transmission - Work, Mass gatherings and Schools.

One issue would have been lorries bringing cargo from Europe.
If we didn’t let drivers through (on both sides) we would have quickly run out of certain medicines, food stuffs and baby products.
The MN collective would have been in bits of they could t source their top organic purées for their PFB.

It should’ve been our biggest defence as an island! I too said this back in February to family and friends and was mocked! Not so funny now though is it.

@GreenlandTheMovie

joystir59 I've now got a rather lovely if worrying image of a collection of surfers with shoulder length hair riding the waves around Britain, repelling ships and patrolling the waters...

It's the new chester draws!

Making fun of OP''s spelling mistake

Some people think that people travel only to go on holidays. That is not the case as I have just said in my previous post. Lots of people travel not because of holidays but to see family and loved ones.
Unless the family and loved ones are sick, dying or just died, then visiting them is a holiday.

What do people mean by "close the borders"?

Didn't we want any imported food or medicines with their foreign lorry drivers, for example? Visiting engineers,doctors, fruit pickers?

Greenlandthemovie what do you mean? This thread is saying we should have shut the borders? And that hopefully that would have meant no lockdowns now.

Yes.

I think it would be better for the economy as a whole to have v strict restrictions at borders and relatively more freedom locally.

I personally think internal borders around areas with low prevalence (requiring quarantine to cross) would have been good - like the inter-state travel restrictions in Aus.

Daily the same people who apparently called for this were the same people ordering left right and centre online.
Where do you think your hair clippers came from Emily? Do you think some bloke is making them to order in his shed in St Albans?

Far too simplistic and easy to say 8 months later.

How long should the borders have been closed for? Are we just talking about flights, or all borders? Should the borders have been closed for everyone or just non nationals?

Comparing us to Australia and New Zealand is comparing apples and oranges. Closing borders would have just disproportionately effected different sectors: food and fuel prices ect would have increased.

Every decision had to be tempered with how people would likely react and that how people would react is dependent on sooo many factors.

There was and is no quick fix.

Dailypotion even if they had allowed some exemptions for importing goods it would have been better. They didn’t need the holidays to Tenerife !

Daily potion - places with far lower self sufficiency (Singapore, Isle of Man) have managed this. It’s a question of being organised and taking rational, decisive action (and not being pressured by specific lobby groups but looking at whole, long term economy picture).

100% agree OP. A total shambles from the outset.

As far as I can see no one on this thread has acknowledged that the WHO were actively telling countries not to shut borders, they issued advice against border shutting in January and maintained it into February: www.google.com/amp/s/www.voanews.com/science-health/coronavirus-outbreak/who-chief-urges-countries-not-close-borders-foreigners-china%3famp

On 29 Feb:
WHO continues to advise against the application of travel or trade restrictions to countries experiencing COVID-19 outbreaks.

In general, evidence shows that restricting the movement of people and goods during public health emergencies is ineffective in most situations and may divert resources from other interventions. Furthermore, restrictions may interrupt needed aid and technical support, may disrupt businesses, and may have negative social and economic effects on the affected countries. However, in certain circumstances, measures that restrict the movement of people may prove temporarily useful, such as in settings with few international connections and limited response capacities.

I'm not saying that it wouldn't perhaps have been the best thing to do in hindsight, but it really wasn't a clear-cut issue at the time it would have been needed. People get very angry about the government not following the science but this was following very reputable scientific advice at the time.

@SendHelp30
Absolutely agree.
I also agree that doing it in summer or whenever would have had much recused impact as the cat was already out the bag.

But grimly ironic that an island country which made such a big hoohaa of standing independent of its European neighbors (BREXIT MEANS BREXIT!!!! aka cutting off the nose to spite the face) utterly failed to do so when actually standing apart for a temporary period of time as an island nation COULD have saved countless lives and untold billions, possibly even TRILLIONS of economic activity.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The first person I knew who tested positive for Covid had been on a ski trip to Italy in February. It was already here by then and spreading.

I think the government has done a terrible job, but it's more realistic to compare our approach with that of other European countries than with Australia or New Zealand. None of them have got it right either.

Hindsight makes these decisions much easier. It really does. There was no guarantee of the way the virus was going to move - despite those whose guesses proved lucky now feeling clairvoyent. New virus outbreaks pretty often and, in lots of cases, mutate themselves back out of existence.

I don't blame the government for not locking down- and, tbh, I'll blame them for pretty much anything. What I do blame them for is:

• how unprepared we were for ANY respiratory outbreak, considering the stark warnings by pretty much every authority on the matter for the last ten years. This includes poor PPE supply chains and stocks and the slow erosion of the NHS for personal gain by this and previous governments.
• the total lack of morals or controls to prevent the theft (no other word for it) of UK tax money by individuals in the current government, who have absolutely used this outbreak to make themselves and their mates rich. e.g. www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/17/world/europe/britain-covid-contracts.html

For the first, all governments in the last ten years hold some blame. For the latter, this current crop are a bunch of absolute criminal arseholes.

Namenic- yes the government were pressured from travel and tourism industries etc

I agree Namenic.
And the frightening thing is we head into the next pandemic with the same can't do mindset.

I've said this on other threads and I will say it again. The problem isn't the borders being kept open. The problem is having absolutely no control over who comes in, and what they do on arrival.

There are absolutely no checks when you land at an UK airport. I've done it a few times this year (for business), and there is nothing. Supposedly you fill in a PLF (passenger locator form) before you board your flight, but the only people who asked me if I had it, where ground staff at the departure airport.

No one asks for your form when you land. Even if they say they will, you just walk through passport control and out into the world. I doubt they monitor them electronically either. No one takes your temperature. There is absolutely NO way of checking if people are isolating properly, and this is the main issue. The amount of people who come into the country, and don't bother doing the 14 days because no one checks on them.

Oh except they have learned they can curtail the rights of the ordinary jo on the street.

It’s been infuriating throughout, like watching a car crash in slow motion

Yes. I used to watch flight radar (app) and wonder why we still allowed planes from China etc to land and disembark all over the U. K.
I wondered why the boat people were allowed and bussed to hotels all over the U. K and allowed to move freely whilst the indigenous were told to mask up, stay indoors.
Senseless.

Far too simplistic and easy to say 8 months later.

In fairness it was said (and done by some countries) at the time.

How long should the borders have been closed for?

Indefinitely.

Are we just talking about flights, or all borders?

All borders to non-essential movement of people.

Should the borders have been closed for everyone or just non nationals?

Nationals told to return. Non-nations have to apply for a visa with very limited reasons for granting. Mandatory testing and isolation on arrival for all. So closed really just means restricted.

Closing borders would have just disproportionately effected different sectors: food and fuel prices ect would have increased.

Why? No one is suggesting limiting trade.

The main negative would be tourism but that would be more than balanced by Brits staying here. Universities would have lost income.

It's far from ideal given the nature of our economy but countries which have done this for a year managed OK. If we'd done it early enough it would certainly have been a nett positive.