That Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock should be prosecuted for the avoidable Covid deaths

[LlynTegid]

The part 2 report of the Covid inquiry finds that at least 20,000 deaths were avoidable, had restrictions come in a week earlier.

Various other findings confirming the failures of Mr Johnson and Mr Hancock.

I think they should face criminal charges, such as corporate manslaughter given government is an employer. AIBU

The parties were the product of arrogant people who thought they could get away with it.

People didn't want to (and actively ignored) lockdown and social distancing when it was clear there was a need with the "avoidable" (I hate that term, we don't know for certain that those deaths would have been avoided) deaths happening. They would have been even more resistant had it happened earlier

. I like to watch Flightradar and honestly, there was umpteen aircraft arriving, from China and Hong Kong in particular, every single day

Thing is Flightradar didn't tell you what was on board.

Once you got well into April 2020 the restrictions meant passenger numbers really dropped off...the freight carriers (UPS etc) were still busy and the likes of BA and I think Virgin were trying to stay in business by mostly shipping pharmaceuticals and the infamous PPE in from the Far East, rather than people.

I think one of our one time regular posters here did one if the China out and back in a shift marathons, flying PPE back to the UK from China.

Nevertheless, these messages were sent to DC from HK. The friends were at school in the UK, so were almost certainly using VPNs.

I think the point is that regardless of who had been in charge there would have been monumental failings. There were the world over.

Personally I wouldn’t vote for any of them if you paid me. but as much as there are people using this to have a go at Starmer, so people are making a big deal of this because it was Johnson.

Fact is there would have been an enquiry regardless of who was in charge. And if it had been someone else we would be sitting here now and posters would be levelling different criticisms at someone else.

Nobody would be saying it was handled perfectly, because the fact is it just wasn’t possible.

The PPE contracts were a massive failing and that should be addressed more deeply.

But whether we locked down a week too early or late was a hindsight thing which nobody could have predicted in terms of the outcome, And a bit of cake and fizz is such a non issue that the hysteria over it was embarrassing.

I personally felt it was a battle between the 4 leaders,who could out do each other!
locking education down and keeping it closed for so long was appalling and the bubbles were utter bullshit!
Rishi should be charged with something for the calamity that was “Eat out to help out’

I’d rather prosecute them for damage that full lockdown caused and for not doing a better job of managing education, especially for allowing the a level algorithm disaster.

But why should anyone care that the effects of lockdown are still being felt in ripples even now when they can call Boris a murderer?
😒

The responsibility for those deaths rests with whoever let that virus out and with the Chinese state. Individual country enquiries that don't acknowledge this are pointless.

Sure Johnson's government was nasty and incompetent but as a pp said they had to let us get to the mindset that lockdown was necessary - ie they had to let us get scared by what we were seeing and demand the government do something - otherwise not enough people would have complied.

I do think it's worth looking closely into economic decisions at the time, there was a lot of money went into people's pockets.

As an aside, does anyone else think Sturgeon's face is puffy these days? Is she on the sauce?

I think there’s a bit of rent free in that pp but yes to this.

Can't see how that would be possible. It all happened on the Chinese regime's watch, and they clearly wouldn't be cooperating.

I consider myself to be relatively political aware, and I started getting twitchy about covid in early February. By early March I spoken to my immediate family, expressing my concerns and we agreed that we would voluntarily go into what became known as lockdown as far as were able then. I knew I was at greater risk than some, and eventually was classed as clinically extremely vulnerable.

Now if I knew this, and my immediate family recognised the risk, why the hell didn't the PM and the Health minister see this?

I don't blame individuals who only have at best a passing interest in world affairs, I know I'm a nerd about world politics. So of course I was following what was happening in China and more scarcely in Italy. But I'm a political nerd, as I say. Johnson and Hancock were paid by us to fucking take notice.

I think they should be prosecuted but I hold out no such hope.

That's simply not true. The overwhelming majority were in favour of lockdown, and adhered to it. Bojo wasn't actually in favour of lockdown, he buckled in the face of public opinion.
He should have gone with his hunch and pushed robust public health messaging. Compulsory stay at home orders should never have been introduced, all it did was feed the hysteria.

I am probably in a minority of one, but I thought most of lockdown was justified at the time. In retrospect the impact on children seems far deeper and longer lasting than I could have imagined possible. The mayhem that was the purchase of PPE should never have happened at all if the NHS had done the minimum preparation rather than just junking all the protective clothing into landfill in 2017-ish.

Id have to agree with this

So how many more were there? My mum died in the first lockdown. Luckily we got her home and my Dad and I managed to care for her. It was a difficult time for everyone, but I don’t want to be bitter. We could only have a handful at her funeral, so I went overboard on the flowers. And actually she had a peaceful death. AND no false claims on the death certificate.

Unfortunately my mum was in hospital and we weren't allowed to visit her until that last 2 days. They wanted only 2 of us to go in but seperately despite her having 3 children. Luckily the ward sister turned a blind eye

And that's the crux of it they couldn't have won what ever they did
Some feel the lock down should have happened earlier some think it should have gone on for longer
Some think we shouldn't have any kind of lock down.

Crufts and another large event were allowed to go ahead in the week prior to lockdown. They contributed massively to the spread.

I think COVID proved, if nothing else, that most people in normal health could survive a severe viral infection but that it was a ruthless killer of anyone in marginal health. Much like influenza, which kills a few thousand (usually) old and infirm people every single winter; a strong version takes a higher toll. My DMIL, 91 and very frail, survived a bout of COVID but died six months later after complications from a fall out of bed. We all die.

My Mum died of cancer in April 2020. We should've had her longer, but the eyes of pretty much all medics had gone elsewhere. It was as though cancer, heart disease etc had ceased to exist - covid was the only risk to life.

We had the 10 people service, all sitting apart. The gates were locked behind the family cars, thus her extended family and friends couldn't even sit in their cars in the car park and pay their respects. It was actually barbaric looking back, and considering the inhumane nature of restrictions. There should have been far more autonomy afforded for people to determine their own risk aversion/tolerance.

People always seem to ignore the fact that the WHO were late in declaring the blinding obvious

And places needed the "official" backing to help solidify their measures

the WHO were awful. I’m surprised they survived to see out the pandemic tbh

Ideally you’d add Chris Witty and a bunch of others to that list for tuning the whole country as a covid quarantine zone. They said hell with dying due to cancelled cancer surgery or domestic violence when women’s refuges were forced to close. They said to hell with all the deaths that come from destroying the economy ( suicides, poverty, social isolation). To hell with children who would develop agoraphobia and never return to school. We had an established and scientifically researched model for managing a pandemic. The Swedes used it and called it ‘The British Model’ but the government ditched it for the unproven method of a totalitarian dictatorship.

Sweden definitely did the pandemic better than the UK, but it's important to remember that Sweden has a much smaller population and more space per person.