*DO IT ALL* says the W.H.O. Director General

[Barracker]

www.cnbc.com/2020/03/13/europe-is-now-the-epicenter-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic-who-says.html

Tedros said countries need to take a comprehensive approach to try to fight the pandemic.

"Not testing alone, not contact tracing alone, not quarantine alone, not social distancing alone, do it all," he said.
"Any country that looks at the experience of other countries with large epidemics and thinks that won't happen to us is making a deadly mistake, it can happen to any country."

We're not doing it all.

Nope. The Tories don't care.

They won't do that here. Boris wants to dismantle the NHS - he is going to try to show it up as unfit for purpose by overwhelming it with this pandemic. Then privatise it.

Do some people just make threads like these for attention?

Yes, let's ignore science and listen to Facebook hysteria. If you think we're doing nothing you clearly don't work in any of the hospitals or government offices where staff are working round the clock to put steps in place. Shouting that you're outraged schools aren't shut completely misses the point. They almost certainly will shut, just not yet. In 2-3 weeks time it'll be worse (no actual chance of stopping it) so isolate everyone now and after 2 weeks the novelty wears off, people can't afford food, companies can't afford sick pay with no production of work. Start the quarantine in a controlled way within the next 3 weeks then the situation completely changes.

Obviously you'll believe what you want but I assure you, we're doing a lot of "stuff" you in personally aren't seeing!

Do some people just make threads like these for attention?

Does anyone, ever, in any circumstances, make a thread wanting it to be ignored?

Yes, let's ignore science and listen to Facebook hysteria.

It was the World Health Organisation who said this...not Facebook?

I'm not 'on' Facebook or Twitter and I still think they're talking bollocks. There is no logic to it. Even if you accept the idea that no one would adhere to a stricter lockdown - what would change in a couple of weeks' time?

People need a government sanction to stay at home. I'm lucky because I can WFH and my employer is compassionate enough to have allowed everyone to do so. Others are not so lucky and will be forced to expose themselves for utterly frivolous, non-essential reasons.

For what it's worth, I think that what the government are purposing is perfectly reasonable & makes absolute sense regarding the country as a whole. It's our fears as parents & offspring to venerable parents that stoke the flames

Before it all kicks off and my post gets lost in all the political and conspiracy theory arguements. I’d like to thank all the NHS workers for everything they are doing, uttermost respect for you all!!

I’d like to thank all the NHS workers for everything they are doing, uttermost respect for you all!!

Hear, hear.

OP WHO are the experts. If they are saying that we should be doing that.
But the British Government think that they know better than WHO. So they will instead consult economists and their behavioural scientists in the nudge unit. And we will be told that it is all just toooo hard to do.

And posters will come on this thread saying multiple times that Boris is right, and WHO are wrong, and that we just have to accept hundreds of thousands of people will die in Britain. Because it is all just too hard to have less people die.

Here’s some “Facebook” hysteria being reported by the Guardian
“The UK government’s coronavirus strategy and the plan to build up herd immunity is facing mounting growing criticism from the scientific community. More experts are questioning the failure to test more suspected cases and the decision to hold back on the more drastic social distancing measures introduced in many other countries.

Devi Sridhar, professor of global public health at Edinburgh University, says the UK strategy is “dangerous”.

Further “hysterical” experts comment

“Peter Drobac, a doctor in global health and infectious disease at Oxford University, says the “the UK is really out on a limb”.

Speaking to the BBC he added:

They waited too long to respond, and we really have to question the wisdom of the idea that we can time social distancing interventions just right to blunt the peak. They are taking an approach which puts them alone in the world. And I think it’s a gamble.”

A massively hysterical and apparent Facebook dumbass Brian Cox tweets his concerns that U.K. is refusing to test, except those who are being hospitalised.

Another person suffering from hysteria who dares question the current strategy was “Professor Anthony Costello, a former director at the World Health Organization, outlined his concerns about the herd immunity strategy in a Twitter thread.”

Unlike all other countries, the UK strategy aims to build herd immunity by allowing the steady spread of #COVID19. The government argue it will block a second peak in several months time. Here are EIGHT questions about this HERD IMMUNITY strategy:

1. Will it impair efforts to restrict the immediate epidemic, and cause more infections and deaths in the near term? Evidence suggests people shed virus early, and those without symptoms may cause substantial spread...this argues for policies against mass gatherings, for school closures, and for strict national and local measures for social distancing.

1. Will it weaken containment systems (testing, screening, radiography, isolation)? China quickly built a robust nation-wide system of mobilised communities/workers for identifying cases promptly, isolating contacts + treating vulnerable

1. Does coronavirus cause strong herd immunity or is it like flu where new strains emerge each year needing repeat vaccines? We have much to learn about Co-V immune responses. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/jmv.25685

1. Doesn’t this herd immunity strategy conflict with WHO Policy? After the announcement of this being a pandemic, Dr Tedros, Director General WHO, said “The idea that countries should shift from containment to mitigation is wrong and dangerous.”

1. Shouldn’t we wait to see the China situation? They've contained the epidemic after 7 weeks of intense national effort. Will their strengthened systems not contain outbreaks quickly? What is their herd immunity? We don’t have serology available yet? It might be substantial.

1. Without an all-out national mobilisation plan for social distancing, are the UK government behavioural and nudge strategies really evidence-based to flatten the peak? Or simply based on models?

1. On the precautionary principle shouldn’t we go all-out to snuff this UK epidemic out, with national mobilisation at all levels, using all possible preventive measures (whether evidence is strong, uncertain or weak) and worry about herd immunity when we have more evidence?

1. Vaccines are a safer way to develop herd immunity, without the risks associated with the disease itself. Is it ethical to adopt a policy that threatens immediate casualties on the basis of an uncertain future benefit?

US news reporting on our insanity

“Bloomberg@business
LATEST: The U.K. government’s strategy to tackle the outbreak will need almost 40 million Britons to catch the disease to work, according to the country’s top scientific adviser.”

Thanks for all those quotes. Our Government is out on a limb. But we are expected to trust their approach. I don't. So I am taking my kids out of school on Monday. My company has said we will all be working from home from Monday. DP still has to go into work, we are too low paid for him to quit work though. But we are doing what we can to minimise risk. DP's work has hand sanitiser everywhere on the premises.
People are acting because the Government are doing very little.

Haha @alloutoffucks the 'experts' at WHO only declared it pandemic a couple of days ago. I know who I chose to believe.
Also, 100s of 1000s are going to die in Britain when globally, out of a population of 7.3Billion there's been 5K deaths so far? Give your head a wobble & stop scaremongering

The Government's own figures are a worst case scenario of a half a million deaths. Are the Government being hysterical?
Probably less than that in reality, but still hundreds of thousands.
And deaths have been kept low in other countries because they are doing things our Government are refusing to do.
Also pretty offensive to denigrate that WHO are experts. They clearly are.

Labeled 'offensive' for calling The WHO out for the length of time they took to call this a pandemic?

Offensive for passively aggressively implying they are not experts.
It was clearly a pandemic, but there are political reason to call or not call it officially a pandemic. That was discussed in the press a fair bit. I don't know what was the right call, but that does not mean they are not experts.

Everyone is doing the best they can.

This will pass, eventually, and then it will be possible to tell more about what helped and what didn’t.

For now there is no crystal ball.

There is kindness, mutual support, self reliance where possible, upholding all those working hard to care for others.

I am awake with DS coughing, not too badly, with a temperature, not drastically high. He is ok but we’ll be staying in as per government guidance.

I hope, if it’s Covid, I’ll get it mildly or anyway be well enough to stay at home and recover.

Best wishes to all.

That is the crux. Myself and a lot of others don't think the Government are doing the best they can.

@Neome And hope he gets better soon.

Thank you.

I do know what you mean about the govt. At the risk of sounding 2.30am loopy, I haven’t been convinced the govt is getting this right for quite some time but at a deeper level it seems to me that the individuals are doing the best they can.

Labeled 'offensive' for calling The WHO out for the length of time they took to call this a pandemic?hmm

You're "calling out" the WHO?

It is amazing how the average person reads a bit on the internet and then thinks that they are superior to an organisation, where they probably have decades (centuries?) of combined experience in the field and academia.

Thank god there is no-one like that calling the shots in the UK.

If we ‘do it all’ now, in the future we will have austerity like you’ve never seen before. Why is that ok with you? Is it so that when we do have austerity measures, you can bash the Tories even more? Even though the actions you wanted, caused the measures?

“For now there is no crystal ball.”

There is. It’s called China and this “crystal ball” has made their statistics known to the world to help prevent a repeat.

“A massively hysterical and apparent Facebook dumbass Brian Cox tweets his concerns that U.K. is refusing to test, except those who are being hospitalised.“

Actually I read his posts and he stated he wasn’t an expert and asked for responses, very sensible really. He read them and acknowledged them when his understanding wasn’t correct.