Boris Johnson management of CV has been reckless beyond belief. Basically, let people catch it and die.

[KenDodd]

His policy of heard immunity -
Let 40% of the population catch CV , 40% of 66 million = 26,400,000 people
Between 1 and 2 percent of those people WILL DIE

Let's be optimistic and say it's 1%, that's 264,000 people

He only changed track when he thought the electorate wouldn't like burying their dead while watching other countries do everything they could to save lives. Now, a good result is only 20,000 dead.

This is a man advised by Andrew Sabisky, and when his veiws on eugenics became public refused to either sack or distance himself from Andrew Sabisky or those views.

We get what we vote for though.

He is only doing what other countries have done at around the same time as confirmed cases have risen.

He made a great decision to keep children with social services involvement/at risk in school.

He had advance warning though, we could all see the growth in numbers in other countries. As far as I know, no other country had a 'heard immunity' policy (aka let people catch it) directly against WHO advice.

Where is our mass testing? South Korea managed it.
Where is the PPE for our health care workers? Other countries managed it.

You may or may not have noticed but Coronavirus hit us all at roughly the same time but BJ and the NHS and a range of other departments as well as the people here have ensured that it spread much more slowly.
It was inevitable that we would hit this phase but we are hitting it going into warmer weather.
We are also potentially a week away from trialling new treatments drugs that he ensured remained in this country rather than be sold off to unscrupulous dealers whilst the trials and studies were carried out
It's not nice but we are doing ok

Not specifically regarding the herd policy, but out time to lockdown the whole of the UK - no flights in or out - was just before Chinese New Year. I was in London and Oxford Street and hotels, bars and restaurants were filled with tourists from China. They were partly exiting China because of the holiday and partly to get away from the very serious and fast spreading virus. With nobody travelling in or out of the UK, we would only have had a few cases.
The trouble is, nobody would have believed him or complied. Business and the markets wouldn't have accepted it. We had to see Italy's crisis unfold before we accepted the threat. Even with Italy and Spain as examples, there were still people on MN 10 days ago saying they were bored with the whole thing and calling his small measures a complete overreaction.
OP - don't you agree? People and businesses wouldn't have understood or complied 3 weeks ago?

BJ and the NHS and a range of other departments as well as the people here have ensured that it spread much more slowly

Genuinely, how have they ensured that? By doing the opposite of what WHO, and the countries hit earlier have advised (test, trace, contain)?

This virus is going to spread and BJ and his team of experts are doing the best they can in the face of the toughest time most generations have seen in their lifetime. But, of course, people will never be happy whatever they do. People scream for WFH rights, they give them and then there is uproar over lack of freedom of movt, people scream for schools to close - they close them and then people scream about having to provide childcare, they work with supermarkets to ensure there is enough food for them, people ignore them and panic buy instead, depriving many others of necessities. I wouldnt be so quick to blame BJ, I would be looking at ourselves and the disgraceful way many are acting in the face of adversity. There are babies without nappies and formula, there are elderly people who cant get a couple of tins of tomatoes and the seriously ill who can no longer get their hands on a pack of paracetamol. That's not BJ, that's the public.

So sick of political vendettas. We all need to pull together in this.

He is a figurehead not a dictator

He will be taking advice and "they" will be making decisions

Consideringist the population ignore advice this shit will spread anyway because everyone thinks it doesnt apply to them

Everyone wants to blame him like Tony blair and the war because with him it was clearly under his control that his advisers TOLD him there were WMD over there ergo it's his fault he should have known they were lying although if I recall the inspectors couldnt even find the weapons we actually sold them so I'm not convinced they didn't have any 😉

You seem to be completely ignorant of the fact that the policy changed based on new modelling from the Imperial College team that advises the Government on the likely effect of different measures. That’s exactly how the system is supposed to work.

It is far from an easy or obvious decision.

Not shutting down costs lives. But shutting down costs lives too.

(Increased risk of domestic violence/homicide, child abuse, increased suicides due to loneliness and other MH effects of being shut in, increased suicides due to financial problems, vulnerable people who don’t get checked on, underlying health problems increasing due to not getting out and about and lack of fresh food etc etc).

I am no BoJo fan but I don’t think it is at all obvious that we should have followed a different path. He is taking advice and the advice changed.

From what I've read he's taking advice from our chief medical officer and chief scientific adviser. Chris Whitty in particular is an epidemiologist.

Nobody actually knows whether the herd immunisation strategy would work or not, and their information is changing constantly as they get in more data, but I understood the premise to be a delay in, and flattening of, the peak of illness to try to push it back as close to the summer as possible when the NHS is under less strain generally, as well as a plan to stop the virus coming straight back in the winter months when the NHS is under the most strain.

On top of that, rumours are starting to circulate that Italy have already stopped treating 80+ due to the strain on their healthcare system - one which is a lot better than ours. Nobody knows what will happen when these countries in lockdown come out of it, it would only take a few people to carry the virus without symptoms, pass it on and the whole thing erupts again.

It can't be easy and I don't envy him but as far as I can make it he's following the science.

I would sooner listen to the advice from our own scientists than frothers on the internet. Chris Whitty in particular is an epidemiologist.
I find the posters trying to make political capital out of this awful situation are the lowest of the low, even worse than the shelf clearing panic buyers.

I’m so sick of people with zero scientific or medical knowledge, and no clue about the massive impact of each decision, claiming that the government are doing it wrong.

Listen to the experts, take their advice, follow the advice.

KenDodd this is why we depend on experts and not on 'some guy on the internet'.

There was never an option to isolate the whole country. What would you do for food and water?

Oh and those other countries that 'did it right' How are they getting on do you know?

@LastTrainEast China and South Korea are doing pretty well. Same for the original small areas in Italy where the outbreak started -they now have no new cases.

Other places don't know if lockdown is working yet and to what extent - Italy shut down on the 10th (with measures tightened since then) and it's expected to take two weeks to start yielding results.

I think the government, the scientists have done a great job in exceptional circumstances, you need infrastructure, you need logistics, you need to workout how to keep people safe and put in place a welfare system that will support the people effected, you need to protect the economy. You need buy in from everyone, not go out, isolate yourself, do not hoard. Everyone needs to do their bit. You also need a bit of immunity. Morons are still going and socializing.

I don't blame Boris. I think some of the scientific advice he has been getting is duff. It took them too long to recognise that their original strategy was going to lead to massive levels of death.

Government policy Uturned 4 or 5 days ago. They might deny it but they did. The science didn't "change" (as they claim) they were just applying the science wrongly/in a dangerous manner and realised they couldnt risk 250,000+ deaths and an exploding NHS within 12 months timeframe afterall. That was pretty obvious to most reasonably intelligent people all along, but it took Johnson's Tories quite a while. The 'timing is everything mantra' was mostly just hot air, while they initiially pursued this diastrous policy.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/18/coronavirus-uk-expert-advice-wrong
This explains it as clearly as clear can be.

That may well be the case cam, but the answer (this is not aimed at you) isn’t as simplistic as ‘just isolate’.

There’s this...

*Not shutting down costs lives. But shutting down costs lives too.

(Increased risk of domestic violence/homicide, child abuse, increased suicides due to loneliness and other MH effects of being shut in, increased suicides due to financial problems, vulnerable people who don’t get checked on, underlying health problems increasing due to not getting out and about and lack of fresh food etc etc).*

And this...

The trouble is, nobody would have believed him or complied. Business and the markets wouldn't have accepted it.

The considerations are mind-boggling.

@Lordamighty: 'I find the posters trying to make political capital out of this awful situation are the lowest of the low, even worse than the shelf clearing panic buyers.'
This.

So sick of political vendettas. We all need to pull together in this

This. Absolutely 100% this ^

I don't know what could of been done better. Every single choice has consequences and right now we have no data to know the best option. The best is being made of a bad situation and we have to support instead of constant complaining which achieves nothing.

I agree LarryTheLurker but am not surprised - they are either paid bots or don't have the capacity to recognise that this is not the time for party politics. I am doubtful that any other party would have done differently given the unusual and challenging circumstances. In each broadcast Boris has deferred to the experts which IMO is the right thing to do.

@LeeMiller genuinely yes it would appear so.

I find the posters trying to make political capital out of this awful situation are the lowest of the low, even worse than the shelf clearing panic buyers

Everything is political. Everything.
This government has withdrawn us from the EU pandemic early warning system.
Withdraw us from the European medicines agency, this could slow and make more expensive our access to vaccines and treatments.
Refuses to take part in the daily meeting of EU health ministers.
All because taking part in these things might weaken our hand in Brexit negotiations.

This nonsense idea that certain things shouldn't be politicised is put out by politicians who don't want to be held to account for their actions. Don't fall for it.