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

Sierra Leone had fewer deaths per million than the UK. For all our wealth and knowledge, we fared far worse and that is down, in the main, to both the leadership at the time, and the political system which chronically eschews cross-party working for the good of the country.

My version of the pandemic was a (relatively) enjoyable one, because I live in the country and could walk freely. I shudder to think about the experience of anyone with several small children in cramped urban accommodation trying to home educate while working from home.

You and I shared the same experience.
And to top it off, my brother came and sat in my garden on the day she died and my neighbour reported me….

Hortesne · Today 19:48
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

I agree. Also, the fact that the wet market was given as the cause and anyone who suggested the Wuhan lab theory was called racist.
Was there any mention of this in the enquiry, I wonder? (I know UK politicians and officials are unwilling to criticise China).

@DiscoHippo Sierra Leone is not at the confluence of multiple air or sea routes; with the best will in the world, it was never going to be a nexus for viral spreading.

I doubt that's true at all. There was a massive push back against it at the time, a pushback which increased. Plenty of "why are we doing this?" messages

They recorded fewer deaths per million. Not quite the same thing. Fairly sure Russia did too, while their doctors were accidentally falling out of windows.

I believe lockdown, or something similar, was essential at the time.

What’s their obesity rate and median age like? Probably a fair bit lower.

Clearly. They were lucky - but we were stupid.

Never really got why blaming the Chinese government was racist but blaming a common cultural practice wasn't. After all, people in China get less choice about their rulers than they do about their market practices.

I should think that for the average citizen of Sierra Leone, covid has always been towards the bottom of the list of "what potentially fatal risks do I face today?"

And their healthcare system isn't good enough to keep lots of people alive for years with significant comorbidities like ours.

I work on a global affairs publication and was part of a team who drilled down through all the available information before it went to print, including extensive interviews with people in each country. So we didn’t, for example, laud North Korea’s alleged zero deaths from Covid ‘cause that was clearly bullshit.

It is interesting that most African countries escaped Covid quite lightly. Because Africa isn't an air hub or because lower hygiene means the people are more commonly exposed to potential infections?

Well, TBF, the report has said an earlier and harder lock down, where the PM also didn't go to parties, would have prevented 23k deaths.

The report then goes on to say that the Govt then made exactly the same mistakes in the 2nd lockdown too.

They were at best incompetent.

In that case Blair should have served a prison sentence for all those killed in the Iraq war.

A very much younger population.

YABU +++
We were all in unchartered, unprecedented territory.
Whatever they advised or otherwise would have been impossible to get right.
They were swimming in the dark and that isn't a criticism.
Whatever they did, they thought they were making the right decision.

Unfair

Off topic, but I spent a lot of time as a small child at my grandma's house where it was common to have to shove a wandering pig out of the kitchen. Not one person of my generation ( seven of us) has ever had any allergies to anything, no asthma. I do wonder if our hygiene fetish is misguided.

Plus most African countries can't offer their whole population the healthcare needed to stay alive with significant comborbidities. You actually need to be pretty rich in order to keep alive large numbers of people who are vulnerable to covid.

In many societies the equivalents of the people who were most likely to die in the UK in 2020-1 would've died of something else much earlier. They weren't there to die of covid because something else got them first.

I didn't write the report but i do remember at the time, there was a great deal of disquiet on why the country wasn't locking down, we all saw what happened in Italy.
Johnson didn't think it would be as serious as it was.

Have you read Hallets report?

Not being a global thoroughfare

Populations far more spread out who probably don't cross paths as much as others

The fact they have limited healthcare meaning that their most vulnerable probably already succumbed to the comorbitities which made people more vulnerable

Hell, we used to visit a lady, after Sunday school, she kept a pig in her house.