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.

Many of us were castigated for 'scaremongering' in Jan and Feb when we pointed out what was happening, with threads deleted in January and February.

So what should we have done in Jan/Feb?

Many of our population has so far been unable to keep to a two week mostly voluntary stay at home policy, I can imagine the uproar if people were expected to give up their mobile phones so that contacts could be traced, or told that they were on compulsory lockdown

I think you are absolutely right. It was known for months what was happening, but the government was aware that it needed so many casualties for people to take things seriously and more or less behave.
Clearly there hasn't been enough deaths yet as many people are not taking it seriously in the slighest.

You could have, naively, hoped that preparation and medical equipment could have still happened and be ready though. The lack of basic supplies in hospital is just embarrassing.

An elderly neighbour of mine had her hairdresser at hers earlier. Next door currently have their daughter visiting and a couple of other people.
We have no hope with people like this.

mochajoes we should have closed up our borders, closed non essential businesses, started social distancing, all as soon as it was apparent how transmissible this thing was. The dog and pony show our governments and foreign governments have been playing has been a massive distraction from the inevitable, that we are hugely unprepared.

The fact events such as Stereophonics concerts, Cheltenham, Crufts etc all went ahead knowing what was coming was frankly a massive fuck up from a government frozen in the headlights.

@mochajoes I stocked up slowly and started socia distancing mid-Feb. Even people doing it voluntarily would flatten the curve.

People travelling back from China/Italy should have had mandatory 14 day quarantines.

The advice to self isolate with symptoms could have also made a significant impact in Feb.

Lockdowns kill people and recessions kill people.

Lockdowns stop people accessing preventative support and medical services that extend or save lives.

Recessions lead to poverty, lower quality of life, lower life expectancy and suicide increases.

It's worth keeping that in mind, even if you support the lock down (as I do). When a government chooses to close down, as ours has, they are still taking an option that leads to higher deaths than is 'normal'.

Germany is the epicenter of manufacturing medical tests
Taiwan produces far more than we do
We were testing and isolating and tracing until it because unmanageable
The reliability of the tests is really important as Spain discovered the hard way
We don't have to be behind Italy or Spain we have different ways that the large population spreads have occured
Less people travel to NZ the communities are smaller the people more spaced out but don't think Australia isn't going to be hit jollybhard over the next 2 weeks

ANGRY. VERY ANGRY & yes embarrassed

We are an island and had the best part if TWO MONTHS to get our shit sorted & handle this MUCH better.

We could have been in NZ’s position if our Govt had taken it as seriously as they have

All these armchair critics - "well if I was in charge I would've done something different/earlier". What exactly would you have done, and how would you have persuaded the country to do it, and based upon what evidence at the time? Interested to hear your thoughts.

Most countries did exactly what we did, at the time we did it, and have all had similar outcomes. The Asian countries who have managed to be in containment for longer, are now catching up with the rest of the world. Sweden is going it's own way, with no perceived (yet) different outcome. We don't yet have a lack of ventilators, and yet we are still seeing high death rates, this isn't because of a lack of equipment, but of the severity of the virus in the elderly. Lack of resources, PPE etc is only an issue in high infection areas ie: London, other parts of the country are not in crises (yet).

I think this has shown that we're not the world power or global player or leading country, that we pretend we are. It's proved to the world that we have an underfunded health service; a police service that is on its knees; a science and research field that is criminally underfunded; and we have an ineffective government and opposition.
The only tiny bright side of this is that it may - just may - convince people to vote differently next time; convince politicians to fund and prioritise essentials.

This is scaremongering. You are not viewing the data in its proper context.

The nature of an epidemic is that as it spreads, it will peak and then decline. /\ Like so. In the start, the number of deaths increase every day, this is the upward / then you reach the and after that the number of daily deaths start to .
Because Italy and Spain started their COVID epidemic weeks before the U.K., there will be a period where the U.K. is at its and the number of daily deaths will exceed Italy or Spain’s daily deaths because they will have already passed the and be on the \ downslope. They are ahead of us.
If you look at the data, the U.K. is not tracking to have a higher ^ than Italy or Spain.
You have to remember to that U.K., Spain and Italy are not exactly the same size population wise (difference in the millions), so even the total # deaths have to be adjusted to a per capita basis. For example, the U.K. has 7 million more people than Italy, so just based on population size there will be a higher total number of deaths and the ^ daily death count will be slightly higher.
Look at the WHO situation report which shows the /\ pattern on a regional basis. Within each region (Europe, Asia, Africa) each country has its own /\ that is slightly behind or ahead of its neighbouring countries. Just like the WHO report is showing China /\as well ahead of Europe’s / and the America’s as starting behind Europe is still on their /

The failure of the UK Government has been at the testing and PPE level - that is where we are behind and that is where I think we have been lacking. That is what should have been done in Jan/Feb pre planning - but a lot of countries didnt do that as well

On the other fronts I think we are no different to others - most countries are on a curve. Some are ahead of us some are behind but in the end I dont expect the numbers as a proportion of popultation to be that different.

The real issue is this - yes shutting down earlier may have helped but the harsh and sad truth is that there will be a limit to how long you can lockdown for before people become restless and the negative impact of lockdown becomes such that really you cant anymore. I think 12 weeks is probably the longest a lockdown can go on for as well.

Europe/US will handle this differently to Asia, and it will in the short term be awful and sad and brutul. But its a viral pandemic nothing really was going to keep this contained - its just the perfect mix of infectious and severe.

Forgot the link. WHO situation report, page 10
www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200402-sitrep-73-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=5ae25bc7_4

Middleager 100000% this, my comments were reported for fear mongering in early February. I had people saying I was spreading fear and misinformation and openly mocking my alarm.

I’m sure some of the ladies in Blue from Mumsnet can vouch for this, their role in deleting threads that others felt were an overreaction. We told you so! Hope you feel good about yourselves for trying to shush those who tried to warn people. I had people with suppressed immune systems worried, asking what they should do, other posters saying it’s nothing to worry about they (me) are just causing panic.

@Baaaahhhhh

Sweden barely tests anyone and is basically not counting anyone with an underlying condition in its death count. Its numbers are therefore not comparable to the rest of Europe (and in spite of that number fiddling it’s actually looking way worse than its neighbours).

I’m more than fucking angry at the stupid fucking middle classes, who went skiing to France and Italy etc knowing that this was blowing up but still came home and spread it around, they will be the same fucking idiots who panicked and started to buy everything they could lay their greedy hands on making it difficult for the rest of the country, if they’re not already selling on eBay and throwing out food

It’s likely that most of those who died would have died soon anyway, such is the nature of the disease. Avoid-ability aside you are right in that some things could have been handled better in general but it would t have happened in Britain.

You gave Australia as an example, it’s just not a fair comparison. The Australian healthcare system is just far far better than what’s on offer in the UK, the country is far better off financially (much higher income per capita, higher rates of financial independence, recession free since the 90s) and Australia is much more experienced in dealing with infectious disease arising in China. As soon as the disease was brought to international attention Australia monitored all arrivals from these country (presumably in the knowledge that China would be boasting to high heaven, or alternatively never shared the information in the first place, if there was any chance of containment). They acted swiftly to restrict travel both from overseas and internally acting accordingly when people have failed to adhere to self isolation measures setting up quarantines (which are incredibly well run). Then the government has also achieved much better suppodt from the population by being upfront and only acting where there was a visible benefit as opposed to capitulating to public pressure. In return the population has also acted better, Australians are less prone to hysteria than Brits, they are also much better equipped to deal with social distancing having better living conditions. The population is also much healthier. Demographically, it’s much younger, fatness isn’t as normalised (although still a problem) but when you combine that with a significantly smaller population you end up with a much smaller number of overweight/obese individuals which we know are much more susceptible to the disease. I could go on for days about how different the two countries are. Even with all of these advantages it still seems like the virus is going to spread through Melbourne and Sydney at the very least. Many of Britain’s difficulties in responding to this arose 10+ years ago and a lot of them are just inherent in the country like an older population and a lack of space.

Wehttam I remember you well from the 'Worried about Coronavirus' threads. You were one of the prominent voices on there.

It was like screaming into the void.

And comparisions to New Zealand are pointless - yes we are both islands but literally geographically we are miles apart, in terms of population numbers we are 16 times the size and we have always been a travel hub, our economy relies on very different things.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/new-zealand-coronavirus-deaths-during-lockdown-could-be-just-20-modelling-suggests

Also New Zealand run the real risk of when the restrictions are lifted it running through again.

we should have closed up our borders, closed non essential businesses, started social distancing, all as soon as it was apparent how transmissible this thing was.

So we should have done this in Feb when the Wuhan lockdown only happened 23/01?

And how would you have implemented closing all businesses, borders & social distancing in Feb bearing in mind all the red tape & admin this requires?

I believe the first deaths in Italy were end Feb how would you have controlled a population of 66m to comply with your rules?

Evilspirit I think you’ll find many of those going skiing to Italy are working class, it’s quite a cheap destination to ski in so it’s quite popular with the pseudo riche willing to pay a bit more for a half term break. But you are right, they are to blame technically but then the outbreak in Italy had happened whilst they were already there.

The government held cross party talks on the 12th March - the SNP MP on Question Time that evening said his party were in complete agreement with the government's coronavirus policy at the time.

BoJo tried to wing it.
I'm glad this has happened to him! He thought being PM would be such a laugh. He's now a shell of a human. That's the one good thing to come out of this.

We should’be adopted the South Korean approach from the get go

Which is all very well if you're willing to accept the way they live and have few freedoms. Have you thought about why their people are so compliant about the reaction to this compared to Western countries?
Also, don't forget that they've been through SARS, Avian flu, etc. and are, literally, more geared up for it.

I'm not embarrassed at anything other than the twats who didn't follow the rules last week and won't tomorrow and the following few days either.

If you felt the government was wrong and we should have all stayed at home sooner you could have done that for yourselves.