To think the government are doing all they can...

[mumoffluffs]

...and will make some mistakes (as would anyone in their position)

To be running the country at the time of this pandemic is one of the most difficult things to navigate and essentially "project manage". Its an incredibly delicate and intricate task.

Coming from a project management background I can say that there is so much that goes into just one project, never mind the immense task the government is having to pull together. The number of different areas they are having to almost reset legislation for expands more to than just the health and economy. I know from experience that any outcome will have been heavily condensed after a lot of consideration - whether right or wrong in the long run.

There are god knows how many different people they need to get advice from, multiple people managing multiple layers of individual projects, people to logistically manage this, and still try to keep the country satisfied with their efforts.

It is very easy to criticise everything being done, Matt Hancock said they welcome criticism and constructive ways to improve things, they won't get everything right, they also do not want ridiculous numbers of people dying.

All the parties in Parliament are working together to try to overcome this pandemic and yes they should be held accountable for shortfalls, but surely we should also realise and appreciate how they are managing this colossal task?

Some countries almost immediately imposed flight restrictions. Borders closed to non natiimals and/or strict quarantine for new arrivals. We had people jetting off over half term to infected ski resorts then returning and sending their kids back to school. Still now we have flights coming into Heathrow. London's mayor cut the number of trains running, meaning keyworkers are crammed in overcrowded tubes. We had, as PP say, good warning from China and then Italy. Yet still our healthcare workers and others on the frontline, the police, supermarket workers, delivery people, don't have enough (or any) PPE. The (lack of) tests debacle. Boris merrily shaking hands with Covid-19 patients. No transparency on the possible efficacy or availability of chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, and remdesivir. We have many people at very high risk of dying if they catch it not protected. Diabetes and cardiovascular conditions have the highest mortality rates with Covid-19 yet they're not on the shielding list so can't take time off work if their employer won't allow it. We went into lockdown at a later stage than many other places. We had the government, aided by the media, pushing a dangerous downplaying and othering message that it's "only the elderly and frail".

1) Please do not tell me every one of your projects has been perfect (cost/quality/time).

Literally no one has said that.

2) Please do not tell me every single one of your suppliers has been perfect in the way they communicate to you and vice versa.

Again, literally no one has said that. However , compensating controls ? We've heard of them ?

3) Please do not tell me that you honestly can compare a project you have done to running an entire country.

Only an idiot would do that. Running the country is business as usual.

4) Have you had an entire nation / the world watching and criticising everything you do - and needing an entire (free) nation to follow your new orders which restrict their freedom?

Your point being ?

Still no airport checks on those being repatriated now either.

I mean airport checks here in our supposedly advanced country.

@Bluntness100 glad you agree!

No one would do a perfect job here. Even the "bodged" legislation is due to extreme circumstances and has had to be rushed - this isn't a normal situation for a government to be in.

Although this will be even more of an unpopular opinion (comparing to other countries) - I actually feel very grateful to be living here and not in India where my grandparents were from. The scenes there have been absolutely terrible, and those I have seen in South Africa. Not saying this as a means of saying "at least we are not the worst", but more at least we have our freedom (to an extent) and not having to be in the dire situations other countries are.

I agree OP, they've made some mistakes but I think they've also made some good decisions and they're doing the best they can in unprecedented times. It's so easy to criticise, but who would want to be carrying the weight of responsibility that the government has now?

Whatever they did it was inevitable that many people would die. The only way to avoid that would have been a complete lockdown of the UK, including borders and all businesses, with everyone confined to their homes for a year to 18 months, relying on basic food rations delivered by to their door, until a vaccine is found. Hardly practical, or possible. With an early, strict lockdown some lives would have been saved initially, but at some point things would have to be relaxed, to avoid mass suicides and/or riots. China relaxed its lockdown recently, but saw numbers rise again. This thing can't be suppressed forever, only slowed until the cure is found. I am very glad to live in the UK, there are many worse places where things have been handled much worse than here. But I know that many people would rather eat sh** than say anything positive about a tory govt, so expect to be flamed soon.

No transparency on the possible efficacy or availability of chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, and remdesivir.

These drugs have a load of side effects and more needs to be done around seeing how they can help - For example, Trump being Trump likes to throw out a lot of nonsense and should reign back what he says as he makes it sound like the drugs will work and will be around asap. This then leads to it being all over the media. Even Dr Fauci in the US briefings has been trying to reign back what Trump has been saying about these drugs.

@Defenbaker completely agree with you. To be honest the thing that has worried me the most about all this has been the way people will react here as we do have our normal liberties which are being taken away (I believe reasonably). The stockpiling and continuous lack of regard for others with some people not keeping 2m away / going out for unnecessary outings etc.

I would have liked an earlier lockdown, and initially thought the government was ridiculous not to - however I then thought exactly as you do, the riots would start, police would be under so much strain, etc, etc.

I actually think they paced the lockdown well and slid in new restrictions bit by bit to allow as many people as possible to "come to terms' with it.

Here's Slate's round-up of best and worst government responses to the crisis (hint: Boris does not come out as one of the best). slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/04/coronavirus-world-leaders-merkel-trump-bolsonaro.html

I agree with you op. It’s a shit situation and deaths are unavoidable whoever’s in charge. I don’t really understand the agro resulting from the term ‘herd immunity’ it’s just a fact that until we have herd immunity from a vaccine or numbers of people who’ve had it the virus is going to keep circulating. There was a thread on here a few days ago with lots of people saying that they had no idea this was going to be serious until it was announced that the schools would close - if airports had been closed in late January there would have been uproar! If lockdown had happened in feb people wouldn’t have accepted it and by now they’d be breaking the rules. And we’d still all be just as vulnerable! I do think allowing Cheltenham to go ahead was f*ing stupid though.

The side effect of Covid-19 can be death. All medication has possibly awful side effects. Just read the paracetamol patient info leaflet. Usually in rare cases or inappropriate use or the wrong doses (most likely when someone tries to self medicate).

I was reading (and posting here) about these drugs weeks before Trump mentioned them. Several countries, including the UK, have been treating selected patients with them. A late stage clinical trial for remdesivir has just started here. I suspect the reason they're all being downplayed is the limited stock worldwide.

Thanks @PlywoodPlank Interesting link

According to the link (albeit subjective to an extent?) Boris is bang in the middle of the 7 countries they look at.

Will be interesting to see how the figures and meta analysis comes out as when this is all over! Gonna throw my hands up and say I have no idea how it will pan out and we could be at the bottom - but at the moment I do feel it is a crazy task and they are doing what they can.

I also think the gradual imposition of the lockdown allowed people to prepare and get their heads round it. It gave schools a few days to prepare and a couple of days for people to organise working from home - laptops, software l, shutting things down, rotas, security, phones etc. Most people I know were already working from hone by the time the lockdown happened.

It's a good read anyway, OP. And Boris isn't in the middle really - it jumps from Conte in Italy (better than expected) to Boris (late and botched - I paraphrase) to Trump (shocking). You don't really want to be the guy one notch above Trump.

@DarnedSocks limited stock could be the case!

I do think it would be unwise to start talking about it too much without knowing if it will work as well as they want too. As you mentioned re self medicating .

I'm completely assuming here and you may know more if you have researched it - Other thing is I assume they will give it to patients who have symptoms but not severe pneumonia? Reason I think that is because the drugs work in a way to stop the immune response our bodies have to the virus where their immune system attacks their lung cells - which causes the severe pneumonia (and incubation as a result)? In that case I do agree with them doing sufficient testing as they may end up with a load of extra patients who need intensive care due to the drugs on top of those who do end up with severe pneumonia.

Ppl love complaining, they'll never be happy, just sitting there on their comfy sofas criticising and pin pointing.
If they had the opportunity, they'll do even shittier job. They are the fifth column

That's a good point @mumoffluffs. Someone in America apparently tried to self medicate with a fish tank cleaner! Its a tricky balance. If these drugs aren't talked about I don't believe the UK will order enough (assuming they continue to perform well in trials). Look at the failure to procure PPE for frontline staff. The downside is, as you say, risks of people doing silly things at home.

I heard early treatment was key. Whether that means before it gets to pneumonia stage or in the early stages of pneumonia I'm not sure. I hope we have good news from the trials. It would mean we'd have something fairly effective to tide us over until a vaccine is available.

Agree op, a lot of people in other countries are facing much more difficult conditions.

I just don’t get this mentality of sitting throwing bricks at people attempting to do a job, working their arses, off and doing it a million times better than you ever could.

Like it’s not hard enough, they aren’t under enough pressure so some twat feels the needs to hurl abuse shouting it’s not good enough.

Really all these people have to do is stay home and try not to pretend they know how to handle global pandemics.

Yes I think you are being unreasonable to think that. If they hadn't underfunded the NHS for so many years we would be better prepared now. Also we knew this virus was coming. The Government should have acted earlier.

1) Please do not tell me every one of your projects has been perfect (cost/quality/time).

No, but I have always been clear at the start of a project which of those 3 was the priority. What was the UK government's priority in facing this crisis?
Preservation of life?
The economy?

2) Please do not tell me every single one of your suppliers has been perfect in the way they communicate to you and vice versa.

I would say that ensuring that I communicate perfectly with everyone involved in my project is one of the cornerstones of good project management.

3) Please do not tell me that you honestly can compare a project you have done to running an entire country.

No, but I listen to staff in my company or others in the industry who have greater expertise in areas where I lack. Like the WHO for handling pandemics

4) Have you had an entire nation / the world watching and criticising everything you do - and needing an entire (free) nation to follow your new orders which restrict their freedom?

No, but I have managed projects where the results would have been potentially catastrophic for people involved if I fucked up.

Italy is weeks ahead of the UK in this pandemic and are in total crisis. The UK government saw what was happening there, and behaved in the same was as the local governments in the worst affected areas of Italy.

The UK government had time to react and avoid that and they chose not to prioritise preservation of life. as a result, far more people in the UK are likely to die.

If you are ok with that then fine, but if this was on my watch I would be handing in my resignation.

The local government in Tyrol is now being sued by skiers who contracted CV there after the local government ignored warnings. There needs to be accountability.

This pandemic may be unprecedented but it was definitely not unpredicted

@crackerofdoom The UK government had time to react and avoid that and they chose not to prioritise preservation of life. as a result, far more people in the UK are likely to die.

From what I have seen and heard from people, a lot of people were not/still are not even taking coronavirus seriously. Doing a full lockdown (or lockdown to the current extent) would not have been as easy to do due to the way people are/ our norms in this country.

No, but I listen to staff in my company or others in the industry who have greater expertise in areas where I lack. Like the WHO for handling pandemics

Even WHO said in their briefings that different countries will impose lockdowns at different times due to the way each country works and the cultural norms/differences.

There is so little we do know, and the stuff we do know is constantly changing.

I don't believe there is any need for resignation - that is ridiculous and would throw even more chaos into this situation. The government is speaking with leading experts and WHO. This is an ever evolving situation which again, no one in the world was prepared for. Even if the rest of the world had a couple extra weeks notice of the pandemic - that most likely wouldn't have made as big of a dent improving the situation.

@DarnedSocks they've mentioned the drugs in today's briefing, let's see how it goes! Hopefully they will sensibly use and stock them once they get the green flag on the drugs.

I do think they may have made some mistakes, but I also think they're trying their best to get the country through this and they cannot go any quicker at this point. It's a difficult situation to manage and only hindsight will really show who git it right - not onky in terms of death rate, but economy, job losses, social issues etc. We'll see. There's clearly no easy 'right answer'. Even on here people are poles apart on the measures they think the government should be taking and when they should have taken them

That's positive @mumoffluffs A glimmer of hope.
Yes let's hope so. Fingers crossed they learn from the PPE shortage.