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.

@Wehttam
“We waited far too long. Many of us on here were posting constantly how people should prepare, get ready, it’s coming, it’s going to be horrific, it’s going to get so much worse, all that back mid February.

People chose not to listen, the government chose not to act, we still have flights coming in to the country, people are still not adhering to the lockdown rules. We believed China’s lies about their numbers, we got caught up in the Trump show, we were tricked with Herd immunity bullshit, we cared more about the fact our kids wouldn’t be in school instead of the fact that we would lose our most vulnerable. We value coins more than lives. “

That is all true, apart from the bit about China. There is little evidence to believe that the mortality figures are wrong. Cases severely underreported? Of course. But where aren’t they. The 80,000 cases for China is probably nearer the mark than the current 38,000 for the U.K., China quarantined the entire city of Wuhan on 23rd January approx 2 weeks after the discovery of the outbreak. At around that time the first scientific research report appeared on the Lancet, warning of its pandemic potential. The U.K. did virtually nothing for a further 7 weeks, a lifetime, only acting when probably tens of thousands already had it.

I'm angry and embarrassed that everyone is all of a sudden an expert and like nothing more than picking fault and criticising .

Utterly breathtaking that people on here think they know more than the relevant experts.

Different countries will peak at different times. The fact a country has low (or high) cases now doesn’t mean that it will still be so in 2-3 months. We also have a higher population than Spain or Italy, and greater population density in most regions, so they are not proper comparators.

We also have a relatively healthy / comparatively young population for Western Europe, which, coupled with geography, is a large part of the reason we have fewer hospital beds than others.

Also, be slow to shoot down herd immunity. It is not an “either/or” choice. The current approach of “flattening the curve” works hand in hand with it. Depending on the time taken to come up with a vaccine, plenty of experts think herd immunity could be the second best option.

Australia is unfortunately on catch up, they are about two weeks behind us. My relative is in Sydney and the prediction there is that they will follow the same pattern as the UK in two weeks time.

April I'd be really interested to know how we'd receive deliveries of food, medical supplies, electrical supplies, farming supplies, etc etc etc etc etc for almost every area of life by simply "shutting everything down" immediately. We trade. We are not 100% self-sufficient and cut off from the rest of the world in terms of supplies.

@LesLavandes 😂 don't click on the thread then, nobody forced you to read it all and comment on it, just close it.
How do you know we all have people to vent to 'at home'?
And what makes you assume i'm 'doing nothing to help'? I could be an NHS doctor/nurse for all you know. Even if i'm not, everybody complying is playing an important role.
There are a lot of excellent, well researched replies on this thread that have helped me to question my original post and helped me see things more rationally and calmly.

Mocha I answered the question in my post to Quartz, do keep up dear

I know people were coming off flights from Wuhan and taking public transport back home. This should never have happened. But our government did nothing. Bloody useless.

Balhamon exactly: "Depending on the time taken to come up with a vaccine, plenty of experts think herd immunity could be the second best option."

Because last time I looked, there is no vaccine, as yet, and even when there is, mass producing it in the millions and rolling it out would take a very long time. Natural immunity will play a very significant part.

People in China are certainly astounded that the UK, US, Italy, Spain allowed a virus with a known possible 3% mortality rate to spread like wildfire through their populace. It was pure complacency. I remember chatting to a taxi driver back in January in Galway and he was sure that people in China were massively overreacting. “But China is huge, 3000 deaths is nothing in that context, right?”. He should have got a position on the front bench of the British government.

Correct hoopla hoopla.

Herd immunity has been the main form of defence in biological terms for millions of years and will prove again to be what stops this virus.

Some people in their timelines of "what will happen" seem to think that this will end the second the regulators approve the vaccine. Er, no - the mass production to go out to billions of people will take many more months if not years.

Their priority was the economy over lives. They were too short sighted to see how stronger action short-term would've prevented longer-term damage - both in terms of lives lost, and a disrupted economy

I don't know why you're not in government.

@Balhammom Yes I do think I know better than the government experts that Cheltenham and the football matches should never have happened.
When you say listen to the experts, my answer is which ones? Because WHO were saying very different things and they are the real experts here.

@rwalker agreed!

So many politicians, economists, scientists and epidemiologists.

It’s amazing really - if only Spain, Italy and the US had checked Mumsnet, the economy would be booming and the death toll low.

As another observation, plenty here suggest we should have locked down sooner.

I see why people say that, but consider the views of quite a few behavioural science experts. The longer a lockdown goes on, the more people refuse / fail to comply. You really do not want that to happen when numbers of infected are rising most dramatically. Therefore, it does often make sense to be reticent about imposing severe restrictions. It is one instance where delay can actually save lives.

Equally, don’t underestimate the cost of funding healthcare, social care and benefits right now. Tax income is already well done and national spend well up. We can only borrow so much before our credit rating pushes bond and loan interest quite high. Therefore, the longer we lockdown for, the less money the government has to spend on saving lives.

Cam77 I remember walking around London, Birmingham and Manchester at the end of January seeing lots of Chinese students wearing the face masks in stores and in the street. It’s been the case every since. I have expat friends working in Hong Kong who are shocked at how laid back we have been in our approach to this disaster. What may be to come sends chills down my spine.

I don't know why but the strongest emotion I'm feeling right now is guilt, even though I know logically that it's unjustified.
I have no idea where this over whelming sense of guilt comes from.
Possibly that I feel hopeless that there is nothing I can do about it.
I do have mental health issues (at the best of times) so maybe it's that.

I would have thought drugs that help treat it is the preferable option to herd Immunity. Less deaths that way. I haven't watched today's press conference but apparently they were mentioned. Late stage remdesivir trials have started in the UK, it's already being used on selected patients, as are chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine. There's limited stock worldwide. If the trials are a success, let's hope the government learns from the PPE mess and gets in a large order for us asap.

What should we have done?

well we were doing well with contact tracing, and were on the ball.

Then they changed tack. when northern Italy became a problem.

what should have happened was advice to all travelling back from northern Italy should have been to self isolate for 14 days. so infected could be found easily and their chance of spreading minimised.

schools could have remained open.

mass gatherings cancelled.

all this would have bought time and helped flatten the curve.

instead they followed herd immunity so allowed people returning from italy straight back into schools and work and get on with normal life. We lost any hope of tracing and slowing the curve at this point.

of course we would have eventually come to lock some form of lock down. But we would not be facing the infection rate and deaths that we are seeing now.

@Balhammom An earlier lockdown could've meant there was less need for a long lockdown. Get on top of it early, prevent it spreading in the first place.

@alloutoffucks

Were the WHO referring specifically to the UK? If so, please can you provide a link to the source?

As I said, it is pretty important that each country imposes restrictions at the right time. That time is not the same for every country.

It is almost certain that 50% plus of the population will get the virus whatever we do (apart from literally locking everyone up in isolation until we have a vaccine). Therefore allowing people to get the virus in a measured way really isn’t crazy. It is common sense.

Excuses excuses but it was incompetence on a nearly unprecedented scale. Dor example, when fighting a pandemic DO NOT let thousands of people from a known hotspot fly over for a game of football, do not continue with marathons and 10,000 capacity rock concerts. Do not start blathering about herd immunity.

Newyear Italy situation really messed us up. I wonder how many grandchildren have infected and handed their grandparents death sentences from a simple ski trip? 14 mandatory isolation should have been implemented at the first sign of any of this. I guarantee once we have a grip on this that will be the case if you are passing through a country with new outbreaks of the virus.