There must be a public inquiry

[Haplap]

And criminal charges. This government will have been responsible for so many avoidable deaths:

UK is projected to have over 3 times as many deaths as Italy by August (66 000 V 20 000):

covid19.healthdata.org/united-kingdom

They took all the wrong decisions despite the scientific advice:

www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-path-speci-idUSKBN21P1VF

Stop clapping, start scrutinising!

The vast majority of Chinese people are very satisfied overall with how their government handled it after a tough first couple of weeks

That’s a really naive comment. Do you have any idea what happens to Chinese people who criticise their government?

Branster agree that it seemed like common sense to not attend these things... But many people trust the government, especially when the government is telling them what they want to hear:
That it's going to be fine, there is nothing to worry about, we won't end up like Italy, mass events that draw thousands of people from a wide geographical area to one place are no more risky than a trip to the pub... look at me, I'm shaking hands with everyone I meet! Carry on as normal, keep washing your hands and we'll be fiiiiine...
I really don't hold the average member of the British public who believed these messages (and who were not all necessarily well informed) responsible to the same degree as leaders who were party to all sorts of information and expert advice most of us aren't (and whose job it is to be well informed).
Plus the average member of the British public (whether they attended Crufts or not) have no control on wether airports have temperature screening (or indeed any checks at all) on arrivals from hot spots. You could have strolled into any UK airport straight from Milan, sweating and pale and coughing and gone on your merry way.

For those that say we shouldn't finger point, it looks like there are concerted efforts to blame officials 'we were only following the science' and Chris Whitty (aka David Kelly) is the chief fall guy.

I do hope not. Chris Whitty and Neil Ferguson have real expertise in tackling life threatening epidemics. The problem has been that their advice was filtered through the fucking nudge unit.

The buck ultimately stops with Boris no ifs or buts. They are briefing like mad against officials. Hence the story below.

www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-path-speci/special-report-johnson-listened-to-his-scientists-about-coronavirus-but-they-were-slow-to-sound-the-alarm-idUSKBN21P1VF

Same in the US - populist soundbite politicians high on rhetoric and absent on detail. I personally would bring a rope others might be more charitable this being Easter and all that.

www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/the-coronavirus-and-how-the-united-states-ended-up-with-nurses-wearing-garbage-bags?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_041020&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5c76a62c954fcf33252a874a&cndid=56563912&hasha=49181e451bee5cb7f479204a127b9093&hashb=94beb0873a77f90766764dcbae416d6749838b0a&hashc=a3fe7ba446cb56b614d42e8ee7c61c88bbb607b77a432e6f95d449da8a95994a&esrc=bounceX&utm_term=TNY_Daily

@vera Thank you. I appreciate that. I don’t want to undermine the seriousness of this situation but I do want to give people a sense of perspective. Respiratory disease is a big killer in this country but doesn’t attract much attention. Another interesting figure is that about 28,000 die of pneumonia each year.

We are still not being fully informed. Our outside doormat and letterbox is disinfected with Dettol every day. Our outside shoes are immediately removed, disinfected and placed in a box by the front door. All incoming packets and shopping are quarantined and dealt with on a table before entering the house. Why aren't people being educated as to how best to fight this thing?

When I see vulnerable shop assistants and bus drivers and the like in the front line of the infection I despair. Where are our leaders in all of this telling the people what they need to know? They are like rabbits blinded in the headlights of an oncoming runaway deadly train.

Here is what Chris Whitty and Neil Ferguson did during the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone. It's all about isolating cases and tracing contacts. One huge thing they did was set up voluntary isolation centres so nobody who had come into contact with the disease had to risk spreading it to their family -

www.nature.com/news/infectious-disease-tough-choices-to-reduce-ebola-transmission-1.16298

Why aren't we doing this? We don't have enough PPE, we don't have enough tests but we've got a fuckton of spare hotel and holiday park capacity.

Why are we telling anyone with symptoms to just self isolate for 7 days (!) at home, with the assumption that the rest of their household will probably inevitably be infected too? Why are we accepting this, while raging about people sitting down for a bit in the park or buying something from the non-essential aisle? Where are our priorities? A fuckton of people live in HMOs, shared flats, horribly overcrowded temporary accommodation etc. An estimated 8% of all London households are statutorily overcrowded, rising to 27% in some boroughs.

Not everybody would practically be able to move out of their home if they became unwell and not everybody would agree to do so, even if they could. But why not at least give people the option of a proper 14 day isolation, away from their household members who may be shielding or who may be frontline workers or who may have no choice but to carry on travelling in (on public transport, with frontline workers) to some minimum wage non-essential shitjob where social distancing is impossible, purely because their greedy bosses (safely wfh) refuse to furlough them?

Why aren't we at least using what we've got to prevent the spread of this virus?

This 3 part article is well worth reading. It's over two weeks old now but still relevant:

bylinetimes.com/2020/03/23/covid-19-special-investigation-part-one-the-politicised-science-that-nudged-the-johnson-government-to-safeguard-the-economy-over-british-lives/

Why has the construction industry done its utmost to carry on as if nothing is happening?

www.constructionnews.co.uk/agenda/investigations/construction-coronavirus-villain-or-saviour-of-the-economy-02-04-2020/

Why is Alok Sharma cheering them on?

www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-letter-to-the-construction-sector

We are still not being fully informed. Our outside doormat and letterbox is disinfected with Dettol every day. Our outside shoes are immediately removed, disinfected and placed in a box by the front door. All incoming packets and shopping are quarantined and dealt with on a table before entering the house. Why aren't people being educated as to how best to fight this thing?

I'm doing similar things but honestly I don't think this is how best to fight this virus. It reminds me of our response to climate change and environmental issues generally - a huge emphasis on individual action, which uses up loads of our time and attention, when this could be better spent focusing on the bigger picture and holding to account those with the actual power.

I agree a worldwide public inquiry about who is responsible for this virus.

Why when notified of it nothing was done for weeks apart from trying to sweep it under the carpet and gagging orders so nobody could tell the outside world.

I agree OP. Stupid comment - could you have done any better? Most of us are not PM or Health Minister

@NoMorePoliticsPlease , what was the bad advice WHO gave at the start? I've seen it mentioned a few times but can't find out what it was

Didn’t the WHO on 23rd January say that it hadn’t left China.

Why do you think any government would be interested in you or I?
They represent themselves, their fat friends and their own investments.
LMAO, that we're entitled to an enquiry.

There will be riots, people will be arrested for not keeping a distance.
That will be the end of it, and good old proles will keep their heads down and carry on working.

The inquiry that needs to happen after this is into the World Health Organisation. Sucking up to China and not even questioning the ridiculously bent data they provided....laughable 3500 deaths in total, more like that every couple of days.

Very good at harping on about reducing fucking sugar but not when we get a real threat which it is what it should have been on alert for and not saying how well China dealt with it after they threatened the poor doctor that kept reporting CV and got told he was a counter revolutionary!! Now dead as well for his troubles.

The inquiry that needs to happen after this is into the World Health Organisation

I agree Marie. The WHO have lost any integrity they might have once had.

@MarieG10 hear hear. Jan 23 according to the WHO this virus was not transmitting between human beings. Wtf?

Just reading this article from 31st January:

"Health experts warn China travel ban will hinder coronavirus response."

"The Trump administration’s decision to ban most foreign nationals who had been to China in the last two weeks from travelling to the United States amid an accelerating outbreak of a novel coronavirus there was preceded by calls for similar policies from conservative lawmakers and far-right supporters of the president. Public health experts, however, warn that the move could do more harm than good."

"The administration’s public health emergency declaration also requires U.S. citizens returning from China to undergo some level of quarantine, depending on where they had been in China."

"Beyond Capitol Hill, Mike Cernovich, a prominent conspiracy theorist and early Trump supporter, had agitated on Twitter for a Chinese travel ban, as has Michael Savage, another conspiracy theorist and a radio host with white nationalist beliefs. “QUARANTINE! STOP TRAVELERS FROM CHINA NOW!” he said on Twitter last week."

"The ban comes on top of moves by major U.S. airlines halting flights to and from mainland China."

"Public health experts have warned that travel bans are not effective at stemming the spread of a virus and can make responding to an outbreak more challenging." ...

"The World Health Organization, which declared the outbreak a global health emergency this week, has recommended against any travel or trade restrictions in response to the outbreak. Member countries, however, do not have to comply with that guidance."

“Although travel restrictions may intuitively seem like the right thing to do, this is not something that WHO usually recommends,” said Tarik Jašarević, a WHO spokesperson.“This is because of the social disruption they cause and the intensive use of resources required,” he added."

www.statnews.com/2020/01/31/as-far-right-calls-for-china-travel-ban-health-experts-warn-coronavirus-response-would-suffer/

Very good article on WHO here:

www.theguardian.com/news/2020/apr/10/world-health-organization-who-v-coronavirus-why-it-cant-handle-pandemic

For all its faults, it's still our best bet.