Is anyone else angry and embarrassed right now ?

[Sapphiresunrise]

For the developed and resourced country that we are, we are potentially going to be overtaking Italy and Spain by the looks of things.
Australia and other nations have death rates in double figures. They were smart to close borders and even close regions. Canada the same. Denmark, etc. The list goes on. South Korea have the situation under control.
We were warned about this. I feel like majority of those deaths could have been avoided.

Ok.....so you are saying the gov should have locked down the country & closed borders before the WHO declared it an emergency because we have practiced for it?

We shouldn’t have even waited for the WHO to announce it. We should have been proactive! Not like these other backwards countries, we should be leading the world* because.... reasons

*While simultaneously admonishing the ‘far right’ (which seems to be non Marxists) by reminding them were not an empire anymore.

'Has Nightingale Hospital treated one patient yet? I haven’t seen any? Meanwhile my stepfather with dementia has been denied life saving medical treatment as he is considered disposable'

It has opened today. They don't need to transfer yet as they have capacity in London. Which is good, so far the nhs isn't overwhelmed but that will change hence all the extra capacity.

I'm sorry about your stepfather but i dont believe anyone is considered disposable. ICU has always been about assessing the patient's current quality of life and likelihood to recover from critical illness. I don't think patients with dementia would ever be considered for life support even before Covid 19 but certainly they would still receive appropriate medical treatment.

Nobody is saying they should have locked down in January and closed borders! It’s not all or nothing.

They could have done more though. Tested more. Ordered more tests if there weren’t enough. Stopped huge gatherings. Asked people to self isolate if they came back from high risk areas. Etc etc.

It’s not all about lockdown and closed borders or nothing at all. There are many options available here which could be effective at different times. We were slow to react. Not to lockdown but to bring in some measures.

. I don't think patients with dementia would ever be considered for life support even before Covid 19 but certainly they would still receive appropriate medical treatment.///

He’s being taken off antibiotics and liquids any treatment withdrawn. He is alive and responding to antibiotics. He doesn’t require a ventilator to breathe. His doctor has written him off because of his age and the dementia.

"we are potentially going to be overtaking Italy and Spain by the looks of things.

No, the U.K. is not likely to “overtake” Italy and Spain if you actually look at the facts. Stop scare-mongering."

It's not "scare-mongering"

• it obviously won't happen in the next week, but even the experts only have a v rough bandwidth estimate of the final death tolls, in several months time

The UK government chose lockdown to reduce deaths to about 20,000
instead of or the ¼ million for much less tough measures than lockdown
or ½ million if they did nothing

The relative death tolls depend on the final figures for the Uk and also for Spain & Italy,
who are about 2 weeks or so ahead of us wrt this virus infection - and who started lockdown earlier too

He also hasn’t eaten for a week as they had him sedated and didn’t feed him. They told us yesterday that we could have brought him food ourselves, a week later. He’s starving to death and now will die from dehydration.

@Blossomad so what point are you trying to make?

I’m angry that China managed to shut Wuhan and have locked down their country yet didn’t do anything about their markets. They don’t seem to have learnt anything after SARS.

I wish we’d prepared for this better. And made more considered choices earlier. Shutting our borders would’ve been a good idea. And discouraging travel much more strongly.

Nobody is saying they should have locked down in January and closed borders! It’s not all or nothing.

Have you read the thread? I'm pretty sure that's what @wehttam was advocating.

No one has said the government shouldn't have had more PPE, they made a mistake there definitely.

'His doctor has written him off because of his age and the dementia.'

Doctors really don't write people off. I'm sorry, it must be a very difficult time but please arrange to speak to someone about this. Does he have a community nurse specialising in dementia? End of life care is of course very emotive but family need full explanations of what is (or isn't) being done and why.

Blossomed but this virus was a brand new virus. They couldn't have said for sure what or how a new, unknown virus would behave, or what part of the body or functions it would affect, or how it would spread. They couldn't have developed tests for an unknown virus. (Obviously). What is your source for this, how did you know?

I am sorry to hear that, Blossommad

I am also very angry. At all of those people who have been going out unnecessarily. Full lockdown may be recent, but we were advised some weeks ago to stay at home. It should have been abundantly clear to any sensible person that this is what was needed. But no, they had to go and do a little walk in the park, play footie or still have parties. These people have squandered our hope of keeping the virus from spreading slowly.

It's a hard one... Imagine all the money that the world has speant on this virus.. Imagine if that had been speant on cancer research... The UK alone spends 500 million a year on cancer research yet we pluck out 300 billion for this. Cancer kills an average of 450 people every day of the year in the UK and world wide nearly 10 million a year.. Imagine if the world had pumped all of this money into cancer research my bet is that a cure would not be far away...

This is not a post debating that CV doesn't kill many people etc but I do think the amount of money being speant to deal with it is crazy and could save many many more lives in different scenarios if it was speant in different areas...

Pandemic preparations by PHE were equal to nil. Took days and weeks to contact chase. No relevant guidance or support for sheltered , residential or nursing home residents. Their incompetence is obvious.

HooplaHoopla

Blossomed but this virus was a brand new virus. They couldn't have said for sure what or how a new, unknown virus would behave, or what part of the body or functions it would affect, or how it would spread. They couldn't have developed tests for an unknown virus. (Obviously). What is your source for this, how did you know?////

The Telegraph newspaper

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/28/exercise-cygnus-uncovered-pandemic-warnings-buried-government/

* @blo*YES. Yes they did.

so in 2016 & 2019 the world knew that every pandemic that would occur would attack the lungs & require ventilators? I didn't know that & assumed not all pandemics would require the same treatment eg Zika or ebola.

It's about testing. Countries who have been able to carry out large scale testing are manufacturing based and their mortality rates are low. We're a services country, haven't been large scale manufacturing for years.

Numbers from France on worldometer 1120. They have had an earlier and stricter lockdown. It doesn't seem to make any difference. All we can hope is the nhs continues to cope.

How many of those saying lockdown should have been sooner went into their own lockdown back then?

Is it possible that you didn't because you were not sure back then it was necessary?

Cygnus showed quite clearly the UK was unprepared for any pandemic. It highlighted areas of weakness and made recommendations for improvement. In 2016. In the intervening 3+ years nothing has been done. Nothing. How can anyone blame anything or anyone apart from a Brexit obsessed government?

Not sure we can trust any information from North Korea, as with China.

I’m not going to engage with you as you are being deliberately dense. Pointless. I’m not arguing straw man points I didn’t make with a sweaty Tory Troll.

Of course you resort to name calling when you lack the ability to debate. P.S i've never voted Tory in my
life but your opinion of me is irrelevant anyway.

Yup. The UK should be angry and embarrassed. But god forbid anyone tell you to stay indoors and not socialise, even if it's for your own good!