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.

@PlanDeRaccordement all I’ve seen suggest our trajectory is at least as bad as those of Italy and Spain, plus our lock down was, I think, a little later in terms of cases.
Where are you getting your optimistic figures from? I’d be happy to be proven wrong.

Horrible comment Imcneil003 but not surprised from you.

I would also like to know if we reported deaths in the same way as Germany, how many deaths there would be, considering they’ve had more cases ( I know more rigorous testing) yet 872 deaths??

Is it because they only record death in people who’ve actually died of the virus unlike the U.K.

Some of the blame must go to the idiots who are still carrying on life as normal. The ones who still go shopping as a family, take their camper vans to holiday spots, still gathering in groups etc. They have been warned numerous times and still go on wandering around infecting people. They are probably planning BBQ's, picnics etc for the coming nice weather this weekend.

Having not left my house or seen any of my family for four weeks now, these people are the ones that make me very angry.

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

But apparently with little basis in reality, a higher percentage of Australians are obese compared to the UK (although there's not much in it)

mochajoes I see what you are trying to do, to try and dispute what I’m saying here, but Hun leave it out. What is your justification for us sitting back and botching up a half arsed attempt at trying to control the most deadly pandemic to pass through the population? Are YOU satisfied with the steps this country took? That you can wander in through Heathrow right now pretty much unchecked? Curious to see why you are so hot on this hun.

"at least we didn't let labour making even more of a mess of things, it would have been so much worst with them! Look at the state of things they left."

If the Tories hadn't been in power for the last 10 years, we'd have at least 17,000 more NHS beds.

And stop deflecting: the buck stoops with Johnson and his Ship of Buffoons.

Angry, embarrassed and ashamed, yes. Surprised, sadly no.

Easy to say ‘we should have shut down hundreds of thousands of businesses, all schools, forced millions into unemployment, stopped people moving around or seeing their relatives, trapped Brits abroad, force people to stay at home, wreck the economy and incur debts it will take decades to pay off etc’ with hindsight. But remember SARS? That was predicted to be bad too. What if we had done all this for that? Imagine what people would have said then.

Also you mentioned the Wuhan lockdown, knowing that a massive chunk of China travelled around the world for their new year yes our government should have acted back in February.

Many of the experts are saying acting earlier would have saved many lives. Now we wait to count our dead, and there will be MANY more to come because of our inaction.

The government scientists will have presented a handful of options to the relevant government ministers. Each will have include a list of pros and cons, pointing out the impact of each option on death rates etc, and the impact on economy and other things. The Secretary of State and most likely PM will have made the decision as to which option to go for.

If the Tories hadn't been in power for the last 10 years, we'd have at least 17,000 more NHS beds.

and world peace because Corbyn and the like love promising to get miracles out of thin air without any hope in hell to make them happen in real life.
As shit as this is, labour would have made it 100 times worst!

Would have, could have..should have? The truth is that everyone is struggling to understand and catch up. It's a complex picture and each country has to do what they believe will be most effective based on what information they have at the time. Truth is the "simple" things that you would donly with 20 20 hindsight are not so "simple" at the time. I hate the Conservative party and their hard Brexit but even if have to say they are managing this crisis as well as could be expected. Why don't we manufacture more of the goods we need - Margaret Thatcher when she put manufacturing to the sword in the 1980s. After the financial crash we were promised a rebalanced economy improving manufacturing sectors but instead the Tory party lined the pockets of the banking industry. Next was Brexit the final dethnell for British manufacturing and export. With what we have left we are doing as well as anyone could expect.

Aesop you’re right, what’s a few hundred thousand dead as long as you can count all the coins you’ve been able to make. 🙄

We should have tested more and still should be. To go against the advice from the WHO is foolish.

And to not have the correct PPE when we have known about this since Jan is also shocking.

I think we should have issued stricter instructions to those coming back from Italian hotspots. Not ‘isolate if you have symptoms’
By then it’s too later. Would it have been so hard to ask everybody who can be back from Italy ski holidays etc to isolate for 2 weeks? Even with no symptoms? I do think that could have stopped the speed of the spread.

I baffle I see what you are trying to do, to try and dispute what I’m saying here, but Hun leave it out. What is your justification for us sitting back and botching up a half arsed attempt at trying to control the most deadly pandemic to pass through the population?

What am I trying to do hun? You can sit & scream that we should have done this or that but you need to have solutions that work in reality.

How would you persuade a population of 66m to lockdown & not work before any European deaths?

I'm not saying mistakes haven't been made such as PPE which has affected other countries. It's just nonsense to think you could impose a lockdown without vast compliance of the population & for that you need a certain level of fear.

The only person I’m angry with is the moron who consumed the bat that started the whole thing off. Everyone else is just trying to do the best they can.

mocha how about the government comes out with the truth and says if we do not do x y z in this time frame we can expect to have x number of dead by April. We dithered and delayed far too long. The fact that people are still not adhering to the lockdown just shows how the complacence of the government has ruled off into the general populace. The fact our media was able to push the ‘only the flu’ agenda is criminal.

The UK fucked up and for that we will pay the biggest price, the death or many citizens and the deaths of our economy and way of life.

"and world peace because Corbyn and the like love promising to get miracles out of thin air without any hope in hell to make them happen in real life. As shit as this is, labour would have made it 100 times worst!"

They're not in power. Stop deflecting.

It's the TORIES who cut 17,000 beds in the last 10 years. Labour wouldn't have needed to promise ANYTHING - all they'd needed to have done is not make the cuts. Simples, yeah?

I do think we should have acted sooner, cancelled gatherings, traced contacts, stopped travel and quarantined people coming from abroad but even if we had thousands of people would still die and people would still be complaining that yet more should have been done. It’s a virus, it kills people, we can’t make it go away all we can do is lessen the impact.

The WHO recommended against travel restrictions & closing borders. Singapore & Taiwan didn't follow this advice, were they in the wrong?

"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."

"A recession – a short-term, temporary fall in GDP – need not, and indeed normally does not, reduce life expectancy. Indeed, counterintuitively, the weight of the evidence is that recessions actually lead to people living longer. Suicides do indeed go up, but other causes of death, such as road accidents and alcohol-related disease, fall."
Don't believe the myth that we must sacrifice lives to save the economy

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/25/there-is-no-trade-off-between-the-economy-and-health?

Australia

Australia implemented actions later than the UK, and from this article, aren’t as tight as the UK. Eg. Romantic partners not living together can still visit each other.

at least we didn't let labour making even more of a mess of things, it would have been so much worst with them! Look at the state of things they left

Here we go “Oh but Labour...”. We haven’t had a Labour government for a decade and the last one left the NHS in infinitely better shape than it is now.

Someone posted this earlier
Deaths per 1M/population though:

Spain 234
Italy 230
Belgium 99
Netherlands 87
France 83
Switzerland 66
UK 53

There is no source for these stats but we should definitely be looking at deaths as a percentage of population rather than gross figures out of context.
And as for arguing about whether the Labour Party could have done a better job....