Gobsmacked by UK response

[Aspoonfullofjam]

Stay at home for one week if you’ve a cold (even though all evidence is that incubation is two weeks)

People over 70 don’t go on cruises.

WHAT!!!

134 new cases in a day and no action. 13 EU countries have closed all schools, another 11 partial closures but apparently no action needed in Uk.

Jesus.

@rollonoctober I have voted Conservative in the past. I don't think Boris cares about people. I really don't.

Stanley lives far from any hospital. The nearest one isn’t 24 hrs and has no ED. So he’d have to travel a long way to a big hospital. Don’t know why pp think he will be treated differently. Although he is so remote where he lives he will probably be ok, unless BOJO goes to visit.

And there will be no closures until it is inevitable due to the amount of people being sick.
Every single action announced was already a fait de accompli.
Over 70s don't go on cruise. Cruise companies are stopping.
No kids school trips when the two main providers of these had already cancelled all trips.

A highly esteemed and very visible doctor would cynically put his career above millions of people’s health?

Well, they both can't be right....... one was appointed by BoJo in January, the other works for a university.

"...isolation of the infected and social distancing, such as cancelling large public events, working from home and closing schools, are expected to have a much greater impact on containing the virus than travel restrictions

Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Edinburgh University, said the results were encouraging in suggesting that a Covid-19 epidemic could be controlled

How long do you think communities can keep that up for Carrie? The Chief Scientist here seemed to think that if we went now, we'd have to stay isolated for up to 16 weeks. 4 months of inconvenience is a small price to pay for me to save lives, 100s or 1000s of them. For those that would go under at that length of time, then surely they could be let have childcare or save their businesses. As the government have said that they will bail people out. Another country is paying people in difficulties, for childcare or whatever.

*I think they are being realistic. How long do you think a lockdown can be sustained? People will start breaking it after a couple of weeks, people aren’t even sticking to the self isolation rules now.
*
Well it worked pretty damn well in China, a country of 1.4billion....

And when they start punishing people that break the rules here in the way they have been in China it might work just as well....we have very different societies, what works in one might not necessarily work in another

Quite apart from the economic impact Freezingold, I just don't think people will be able to stand 4 months of confinement. There'd be a huge increase in DV at the very least. Probably civil unrest. I work with troubled families. Believe me not everyone is going to be in cosy homes playing board games for the duration.

If no one's working (except essential services paid for by the state) how is "the government" going to raise the money to compensate everyone?

@Discobar If he had spoken calmly, and sensibly then I might at least think he had a plan. Not one I liked, but an approach that made sense. But his language was inflammatory, and then to do nothing was outrageous.

I'd also have more/any respect if he'd put in place or announced a different set of rules etc for those with underlying health conditions. Perhaps confirming that kids with asthma or any other condition could chose to be off school without concern about the attendance police knocking on their door.

26 countries have closed schools.

en.unesco.org/themes/education-emergencies/coronavirus-school-closures

I have voter’s remorse after watching that shit trumpet at 5pm.

Not a mistake I will be making again. It’s going to go full Wuhan here and these fucknuggets are complicit.

This is interesting, and I was wondering about it today. Johnson and brexit are built on an appeal to emotion, slightly paranoid authoritarian tendencies, a fear or foreigners, populism and a mistrust of experts. Applying those values to the covid planning would lead to the opposite reaction to the one today - measured, rational, evidence-based technocratic policy, rooted in expert advice. I think Pants-on-fire Johnson will have to change direction on this or incur the wrath of his swivel-eyed supporters

It does seem that Boris has gone full macro and is preparing to sacrifice a minimum of 1% of the population (I am guessing closer to 2%) in order to be economically strong next year via immunity.

It really worries me ( and I am not a virologist so maybe I am wrong) that there are other viruses within us, including other corona viruses, which will be swapping DNA with Covid 19. It could get milder but what if it went the other way?!

China is already over the worst within 3 months. They have done this by controlling people ruthlessly but, to me, a pandemic is like wartime, normal freedoms are suspended.

People are not sticking to self isolation because they were told it is no worse than a minor cold. Why would you stick to self isolation for a minor cold? It sounds like total overkill to do so.

All who is saying it’s no worse than a minor cold?

Normal freedoms being suspended can only work at the outset like China did. Otherwise it’s Italy situation and still high numbers.

Have they shut their borders btw? How do they stop it coming back in

China that is

Why are people comparing us to other countries who’ve closed

Many are much closer to their peak. France and Italy both only closed at 2000+ cases

As scientist said we need the healthy to get it in order to build herd immunity

We need it to spread in a controlled way

Preventing that will be worse

www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/coronavirus-pandemic-yes-minister-boris-johnson-uk-testing-outbreak-symptoms-a9396511.html

@MarshaBradyo That is what the Government has been saying for the last 3 weeks until yesterday I think.

Lindy2 Thu 12-Mar-20 17:22:30

The experts seem to be very clearly explaining why they've made these decisions. It seems like this approach has been decided by science and medical professionals rather than Government

I suspect the exact opposite is true.

How could Britain have experts giving the government advice that is completely contrary to the advice most other governments seem to be getting?

This is belief in British exceptionalism running amok.

@Sunshine1239 Who knows if we have hit that or not, we are not doing enough testing to know. The mortality rate would suggest we have far more cases than identified.

Omfg DentalPatient - that hits the nail on the head.

The message I took away from that press conference wasn't at all comforting. It was "we're not going to do an awful lot yet - you're on your own and some of you are going to die".

The "delay" phase doesn't seem all that different from the "contain" phase - which mostly consisted of "wash your hands and don't touch your face".