Would you rather be here or in Sweden?

[Forgetaboutme]

There's been a lot of talk about the way Sweden are handling the coronavirus situation. Schools still open, bars n clubs plus shops still open. The vulnerable being shielded and the rest social distancing or working from home where possible.

Would you rather be here on lockdown? Or in Sweden?

Do you feel safer on lockdown or if you lived somewhere like Sweden would you have been happy to live how they are at the moment?

Just bored here and wondering what people thought.

Please tell me the police didn’t respond to that?

They absolutely did! An officer had a 'chat' with him and threatened to fine him for having driven along the busy main road to get to the wood. He admitted that it was 'advisory' rather than the actual law, so I'm not sure on what basis he reckoned he was going to fine him.

Oh Puffin, that’s dreadful.

Do you all know that Harriet Harman has written to Matt Hancock, in her capacity as head of the Joint Committee on human rights?

Please write to her. This is the sort of information her office will need.

Does anyone know if the “advisory” thing applies to use of public transport?

This is the letter

publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt5801/jtselect/jtrights/correspondence/200409-Letter-to-Matt-Hancock-regarding-Health-Protection-Coronavirus-Restrictions-England-Regulation-2020.pdf

Maybe I should start another thread? It might just get negative attention.

12 today. I hope it's a true reflection and not just because they've all buggered off to their holiday homes for Easter weekend.

Sweden has been doing it right.

Thanks, I will pass that on to him.

@Onesailwait

I'm interested to know in what way Vancouver Island and England are comparable in size? A quick google tells me England is 4 times the area and has 60 times the population of VI.

Onesailwait in what world is Vancouver island the same size as England?!

puffin

Wake up. Look at the death rates for the UK. They are awful. If it weren't for the lockdown, they'd be worse. It's not a failure to be calm that has led to the UK response, it was an analytical appraisal of the likely death rate without lockdown. Our population density is higher and people like your dad are being protected by the current measures.

OK. I prefer the response in my country. This thread asked where you'd rather be, it's a subjective question. I'd rather be in Sweden than the UK. You don't have to feel the same way.

Puffin, I’m confused, I thought you were in the UK?

No, my parents are, but I live in Iceland.

Loving the response to this thread. Thanks for all the responses. Personally I'd rather be in Sweden as I have a lot of worries about the effect of this on other areas of health and also the economy. Having read this thread, I also think Iceland sounds like a great place to be just now and a few other countries.

I have some family in Sweden myself which I suppose is why I have been following that country so much. All are in a busy city in southern Sweden and all are happy with how it is being handled thus far. They have told me though that there are also many who are not happy and would prefer to be in a situation like the UK is now.

Puffin, sorry, got confused.

I don’t really go abroad but I think a holiday to Sweden and Iceland will be in the cards when permitted.

Sweden. At least when this is all over they’ll still be part of the Eu and have an economy and we will have neither but we will have a nice big pile of dead people.

@0v9c99f9g9d939d9f9g9h8h

If we had a competent government who hadn’t wasted two months we would be in a very different place. Worst bit is they had the evidence from exercise cygness of how this would play out, which they ignored. Our government is firmly to blame for the death rate.

lovely

I couldn't agree more. But at the same time, what they're doing now is crucial, given the mess we're in. We should them our lucky stars they're not trying to be Sweden.

thank

lovely they’re also firmly to blame for lockdown and resulting recession.

Lilac what would your preferred option be out of all the countries approaches? If Sweden then what would be the death count be here do you think?

Marsha, I don’t know.

But if we’d started contact tracing and quarantine in February, lower?

we’ve talked before so you might recall my dad worked in infectious diseases. It seems like the most basic protocols, that were in place years ago, havent been followed. I initially thought contact tracing meant by phone but we could have it done it the old school way.

PS the other unavoidable pandemic will be bacterial and will be resistant to all forms of bacteria.

After retiring, dad was called into a couple of committees but felt they were set up for show.

Lilac we have chatted I too am interested in whether the U.K. could have contained this.

If I look at NZ a few things stand out

• not a transport hub, the sheer amount of people flying in and out of London
• possibly here before the Brighton guy anyway (was he the first in the media?)
• we do not have the infrastructure of Taiwan eg, or the political will of China

But mostly I think we did try to contact and trace as much as NZ did but without a lock down it’s impossible

So would we have accepted lock down early on? NZ had the advantage of being able to say look at Italy, we don’t want that. We were in a very different place when Brighton guy rocked up and skiers returned. Perhaps there were skiers that brought it the week before.

I don’t know, maybe we could have contained it with early intervention? But closing borders at a time when even the WHO said not to (I question that actually).

Ramble but it’s interesting to think of it could have been avoided.

And sorry 0v9c99f9g9d939d9f9g9h8h, did you actually say on the previous page "I don't think people in the UK realise how sure our situation is or how catastrophically it's being handled" and then have a go at me for saying I wouldn't want to be there right now?

As an outsider (with a vested interest as a British citizen with many friends and family living in the UK) I have got the impression of a leadership that dithered around and then got cold feet and lurched a little too far in the opposite direction. It has all seemed a little haphazard and the general atmosphere in the UK right now seems rather unpleasant for reasons quite besides the direct consequences of the virus.

You can say that things would be worse without such severe restrictions and perhaps you're right, but they'd also probably be better if there had been a measured response from the start with the focus on testing, moderate social distancing, contact tracing and quarantining.