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

[Lardlizard]

Surely that would have saved the country millions

It's about getting numbers low and being able to trace where cases do break out

It has to be extremely low to effectively track cases. You need a quarantine that removes the people from community. Allowing lorries in then tracing after would not work. Especially if no lock down.

@DonkeyMcFluff

I said at the time the borders should be closed but as usual the UK government did fuck all.

This ☝️

Not all hindsight. Way back when, the government only advised people travelling in from a couple of villages in northern Italy to self quarantine . At the same time businesses I knew of said don't come in if you've been north of line between Florence and Rome.
Loads of our initial seedings were from half term holidays round this time.

The UK government were totally crap (and the WHO have been opaque imo: Don't close borders / Be like China" can someone square that circle for me? It has driven my logical brain haywire for the past months.)

I know that there were some MN threads about closing borders back in January and that those posters areverypleased with themselves, but actually I'd still rather the government followed WHO advice than MN's most pessimistic doom mongers even if they occasionally turn out, like a stopped clock, to be right.

I'd rather have the stopped clock decisive leadership of countries like Taiwan than what we ended up with here.

It's reliant on shipped and air freight - all of which involve people intensive transport, unloading (and reloading of outbound goods).

These good won’t be bringing in the virus as people do.

Taiwan ignored WHO’s advice. This was at a time when the WHO was the most listened to source of advice.

I think we really need to look and plan ahead because this will likely happen again.

It would have had have been very early February or earlier when very few countries if any were

The first lockdown worked. We got the numbers low. The problem was that we didn't shut the borders and didn't even try to trace people until autumn.

In this hypothetical world we'd need to have expanded rather than closed the first T and T programme but those two together would have made a big difference. Shutting mass gatherings sooner would have helped.

Sooner or later we'd have needed restrictions. The question is: could we have avoided them being so draconian for so long?

I used to be in awe of WHO and took to watching them online..

Australia is nowhere near as dependent on visiting lorry drivers or migrant labour, surely, just because of practical issues with its location.

I can't speak for Australia, but NZ is very dependent on migrant labour - there is a shortage of fruit pickers at the moment. Some overseas workers in various sectors have been allowed in, but they have had to quarantine on arrival the same as anyone else.

Yes decemberdiana that’s what I keep saying. There will be future viruses. We got “lucky” this one didn’t affect the young too badly and had a relatively low fatality rate. Wait til bird flu arrives. We need a better plan before that comes. It makes me want to leave UK seeing how awful it’s been handled

@DecemberDiana

I think we really need to look and plan ahead because this will likely happen again.

I do wonder about next time. I got round on for commenting that next time you’d hear borders shut from space so fast it would be. Back then people thought the Who could do no wrong. But if we can detect a virus fast enough from the country of origin no way will people let them in.

This time we were slow. WHO was slow. Probably because SARS taught us to react differently. The asymptomatic part was different.

@MarshaBradyo

Taiwan ignored WHO’s advice. This was at a time when the WHO was the most listened to source of advice.

It was the correct choice - and that was clear from the obfuscatory nonsense coming out of the upper management level of WHO (to be clear: not the boots on the ground) at the time.

NZ had to firmly rebuff China's order strongest terms request that they not close the border - at a time when China had closed its own borders! That was so inappropriate and good on NZ for saying "no".

The pressure for the West to remain open wasn't coming from a medical place, it was entirely political and partisan and we should have done what was right for our citizens - as many other countries did.

@DecemberDiana

I think we really need to look and plan ahead because this will likely happen again.

Absolutely, and that can and should include discussion and analysis of whether more countries could have done as e.g. New Zealand did, and whether that should be a first-line response in future; it would, of course, be a much easier sell for a future pandemic than it would have been in January as people will be warned to 'remember coronavirus'. But that's really different to claiming that it was obvious, back in January, that the government should simply ignore WHO advice and people who say that it was make themselves look a bit stupid, I think.

We were doomed when foreign holidays were allowed. The resulting autumn wave has hit us all even those who gave up their summer holiday in the sun.

I consider those who flew abroad for a holiday incredibly selfish and that they carry a lot of the blame for the situation we are now in

Australia is nowhere near as dependent on visiting lorry drivers or migrant labour, surely, just because of practical issues with its location.

You're right about imports - Australia produces almost everything it needs in terms of essentials, like food for example, but we are heavily reliant on migrant workers. Our hospitals, for example, are mostly staffed by migrant doctors and nurses. Funnily enough a lot of them are from the UK originally. Apparently the NHS is awful to work for.

@MarshaBradyo

It's reliant on shipped and air freight - all of which involve people intensive transport, unloading (and reloading of outbound goods).

These good won’t be bringing in the virus as people do.

...and that's why you shut the border. 🤷‍♀️

...and that's why you shut the border.

Pics emojis like that are irritating. I was talking about importing goods - ie lorry drivers that bring them. You cannot quarantine them as Aus / NZ did.

Totally agree OP, absolutely sick of this yo yo lockdown shite and the divide they have caused in the UK.

Did the few travellers they let in that is.

If we had x amount of lorry drivers delivering goods what could we have done to contain that?

When people use the phrase we are an island like NZ is they are forgetting that we are still highly accessible by road as any non island country is.

I consider those who flew abroad for a holiday incredibly selfish and that they carry a lot of the blame for the situation we are now in

why? people were encouraged too, ministers even went on hols.
I remember looking at ONS infection rates, they were still in the 1000s every day.
the virus never went away, it just needed "eat out to help out" did you take part in that? (proven now to have caused spread) Schools and the return to the workplace, again driven by govt policy.

It’s so odd watching people wanting anyone or everyone or this or that or the other to blame. We are in a pandemic. Nobody wants this. The virus is to blame.

Although its tempting I think the "draw bridge" approach would not have worked with the UK. The UK is still a hub in the way that New Zealand or Taiwan are not. It's very likely by March CV was present in the UK at such a level that international travel then played a minor part in infection levels.
I travelled through France, Belgium, NL and Germany back in the summer without incident, control measures were similar everywhere (though Germany was out of lockdown a few weeks earlier than the UK). Here is the issue, all anyone or any government can do is look at the information they have and act accordingly with the best hypothesis they have. Sometimes the data is incomplete and the hypothesis wrong.

Regarding China shutting/not shutting its borders:

China shut down INTERNAL FLIGHTS pretty early (ie flights from Wuhan to other parts of China... while nagging its ASEAN partners and other countries to keep their own borders open to China (amid lots of sobbing and whinging from the Chinese Communist Party about how MEAN it would be for anyone to close their borders, and what a terrible effect this would have on the poor precious Chinese economy. I know, because I had to write up a report on some of the ASEAN meeting details).

They were happy to export the virus to other countries, while being careful not to spread it around other parts of China.

Once the virus was established in other countries, China immediately took steps to stop all flights from those countries into China.

Next time, the world needs to be prepared.

First whiff of the next dodgy new virus breaking out in China (or Chile, or Greece, or the US, or Ghana, or ANYWHERE), close the fucking borders and do it immediately, and anyone who is on a plane in the air at the time that the borders are closed will get quarantined for two weeks in a hotel airport when they arrive. Shut it down. Immediately. Close the borders.

No more listening to sob stories about "Why are you blaming us for this virus?" "You're racist!" "It will stigmatize us!" "It will damage our economy" etc. etc.