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

[Lardlizard]

Surely that would have saved the country millions

Not read the full thread but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

We could have potentially closed our borders together with Ireland (keeping the Irish border open) and just allowed essential (eg Brexit talks!) and compassionate travel.

However, the big problem is that we have so much freight coming in by lorry rather than just container, like for NZ, and I am not sure it would have made that much difference. Stopping people going on holidays overseas might have helped though.

All this year people have said that this country has done wonderfully and then that country has done wonderfully - and actually, in the end, the virus hits everyone. Even South Korea is having problems with hospital capacity.

Closing down all the airports and not allowing any flights or holidays would have saved a lot of lives, time and effort.

It really annoys me that restaurants etc are shut, we can’t enter other people’s homes but we can book a flight together and go abroad if we want to!

At least 5 polish girls from work visited home in Poland. Were able to go out clubbing and so on. Get on a flight come back to the uk, then straight back to work. While we were in a lockdown. Totally unreal 😡

International travel is a minor source of infection rate. Restaurants and travel can't really be compared!

Many destinations have the same control measures in place.

How does this help you now? I’d be using my energy worrying about the things I do have control over. No point vexing about things that can’t be changed

This

@Nameoff
If the rates were low enough for clubs to be open in Poland and they didn't require quarantine when they arrived then I don't see a problem other than jealousy.

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.

I agree that that's what the overwhelming public pressure to do will be next time, and what will happen. Everyone will want to do a NZ. And then it'll turn out that that isn't the best response to that particular virus and people will be furious. It's a recurring tragedy of human history, you always fight the last war/epidemic/famine, not the one you have in front of you because it's so much easier to know what you should have done last time than to know if that's what you should do this time.

Not read the full thread but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Yes what happens next time is different to this time.

NZ did lock down at same time as us that is a huge amount of insight to world situation. Completely different in early Feb here - a comparable time on curve.

But I agree re flights from China and think that was a big mistake but not at much from us.

This is a big wake up call and next time countries will react. I hope we have insight to major hospital for any spikes too.

I don't want to blame so much as I want to understand whacky decisions or failure to act because similar things will occur again.

If the WHO advice is wrong / changes then we need to ask why.

..And fund research into stuff like efficacy of public mask wearing, the physical spread of respiratory viruses, spread in children and teens. All things the medical collective seem to have very sketchy evidence on.

Oh and we do need more NHS beds to cope with winter respiratory disease anyway.

What we desperately, desperately need is better public health and a massively reduced obesity rate, which would have made a huge, huge difference, but they're such tough nuts to crack. We could also do with a younger population, though obviously that's not really open to change. One of the awful things about this is that the recession we're going to enter and the effects of restrictions themselves will leave the UK population in an even worse state for the next pandemic.

Maybe. But that didn't happen so no point in going on and on about it now.

Hardback yes generally the U.K. is unhealthier and at higher weight

I hope people are taking their vitamin D this winter. That's something that could be done today.

@Hardbackwriter

What we desperately, desperately need is better public health and a massively reduced obesity rate, which would have made a huge, huge difference, but they're such tough nuts to crack. We could also do with a younger population, though obviously that's not really open to change. One of the awful things about this is that the recession we're going to enter and the effects of restrictions themselves will leave the UK population in an even worse state for the next pandemic.

I couldn't agree more, and one of the saddest things that has happened in lockdown is that sport has become mostly the preserve of the elite level professional athletes (who can still compete and go abroad to train, etc), while things like park run and local 10ks are cancelled for the foreseeable future. Whilst these are the events which help the average person's health. Even the prolonged closure of gym and swimming pools most of the summer was detrimental to health.

Then think about all those people who have had joint replacements cancelled, who have no choice to sit about, instead of returning to active life. Or just generally those who sit about eating too much when bored.

The lockdowns do seem to have adversely affected sports more than other areas - for a long time it was possible to go to the pub but not to go to the gym or swimming pool!

As to why go on about it. Well why be silent?

If anyone wants to start an online public health pressure group I'm in, otherwise I just feel slightly better for voicing my frustration of a number of months.

Oh yes professional sport versus parkrun.

@Hardbackwriter

What we desperately, desperately need is better public health and a massively reduced obesity rate, which would have made a huge, huge difference, but they're such tough nuts to crack. We could also do with a younger population, though obviously that's not really open to change. One of the awful things about this is that the recession we're going to enter and the effects of restrictions themselves will leave the UK population in an even worse state for the next pandemic.

You can't mention obesity though. Even acknowledging that it's a really hard nut to crack and that proper support will be needed, no one wants to hear it.

The UK isn't self sufficient so we'd need food and medicine deliveries but I think yanbu about tourism

Besides which, isn't it too soon to be considering Australia such a success? It's summer there now, they are seeing hot spots again already and it's what happens in flu season that counts.

It hasn’t been summer all year though! The first lock down was in late Autumn and over winter.

Yes, there is a hot spot in Sydney that everyone is scrambling to contain. It originated from an overseas traveller and is currently at 28 cases.

Yes, there is a hot spot in Sydney that everyone is scrambling to contain. It originated from an overseas traveller and is currently at 28 cases.

Before anyone says "I thought there was no international travel allowed into Australia?" this person is either a repatriated Australian from overseas, flight crew, or similar. Not a tourist.

You can't mention obesity though. Even acknowledging that it's a really hard nut to crack and that proper support will be needed, no one wants to hear it.

It is really difficult - I've noticed that, for instance, when people talk about the disproportionate impact of Covid in poorer communities they might mention that health is generally poorer in these areas, but they never mention how closely linked obesity rates and poverty are and how that might factor in. I agree no one wants to hear it, especially in a year where so many things have been driving public health to get worse, not better. It's not like I can preach, I put on half a stone in the first two months of lockdown and drank far more than usual (and then got pregnant, which stopped that but meant I'm making my own little contribution to the strain on the NHS this winter, which I don't feel great about...). But it's such a huge factor. I do wonder what we could have done if we'd spent a fraction of the Covid money on other aspects of health over recent years, how much better prepared we'd have been both for Covid but also for everything else.

The one country that appears to have bucked the others is Japan. 2661 deaths.

One of the slimmest nations, backwards tracing I believe, and understood early re clusters. But still very low.

Pretty sure that arranging a lorry hand-over at Dover/Calais would be easier than hugely expanding the test and trace (which was started belatedly and still to be applied to schools).

Singapore has huge road traffic from malaysia and is much less self-sufficient than U.K.