It's predicted we might well be the worst affected country in Europe

[KenDodd]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52261859

Yes I have questions. The testings a joke. They have no true idea how many have it mild or how many have had it.

The only way we are less locked down is we can still walk outside keeping 2m apart. We can't catch coronavirus outside walking. As long as we don't touch things and walk near others from different households. It's quite easy to do that in many places. I admit it must be harder in cities. But many are choosing not to walk etc all.

If we stop excercise then we get weaker as people. We lack in vitamin d. We get lazy. We put on weight. Our lungs and heart don't get a work out. We don't breathe in fresh air. Out kids will be mentally bored.

Imagine having a flat and no garden. Or a tiny garden. Being anxious and depressed. The sight of the sun and the birds singing can lift my mood massively. I love walking.

You need balance. I don't thinkbitsly or Spain are doing that great considering. Look at all the death. It's tragic.

I am so angry about how badly this situation has been dealt with by our government.

Blaming us isn't working and people are starting to get arsey.

They're going to need to find someone or something else to blame to unite the people behind them. Tale as old as time.

Imagine having a flat and no garden. Or a tiny garden. Being anxious and depressed.
Yes. I don't have to imagine that, I'm living it and I haven't been out for over a month. I dont know if a stricter lockdown is important but many countries do . Maybe the UK should consider it too seeing as the numbers are so high?

I wonder if it's because we are so densely populated on really a very small island?

You mean like Hong Kong, Singapore etc?

We had models in other countries of how to manage this

Our management has been woeful and the lockdown halfassed.

They'd been minimal gov investment or planning

@Veterinari it was a genuine query! Just wondered what others thought. Whatever the reason, I see no point in blaming the government, and I would never vote conservative btw. The whole world is suffering, not just us. I am just trying to trust that the experts know what they are doing. I feel powerless right now and need something to believe in to be honest.

I think the uk will be one of the worst or worst in Europe but don't think the government is to blame - they've been following the scientific advice all the way, although lessons certainly need to be learned on PPE which seems to have been a logistical (or supply) disaster based on who you believe.

Maybe it's because we have an older population living longer. I did home care for a couple of years. Ladies in mid 80s still very much with it. Some had mobile phones and I pads. The only reason they needed care was a fall or sometimes cancer etc. I am guessing the older you get the more chance of developing cancer you have. I can imagine thousands who have died in the UK had cancer etc and were probably elderly. Doesn't make their death any less tragic or unfair.

I've read stuff about the stats being a lie anyway. They say it's covid 19 even if they were in deaths door anyway. I obviously don't know if this is true. My partner also pointed out the flu stats have suddenly disappeared and the same amount of people have died this year as previous years. I've been reading people's comments today on sky news articles and many are saying the same. They sent doing post mortems as there's too many so it just goes down as covid 19?

I don't know anything. I'm the last person to claim I understand any of it. But I'm reading other people's opinions and it does get you thinking.

What is going on?

I think the blame lies with human nature (and a Tory minister) to not plan for a possible, horrible thing in the future. There were reports saying we needed to keep reserves in stock of PPE and equipment as we were ‘due’ a pandemic. Sadly they didn’t heed that advice. Many governments didn’t.
In time, we will find out what went on with the lack of contact tracing.

Science has shown for months that strict lockdown, contact tracing and testing are needed. It's what has worked in other countries and what WHO recommends. It's common sense that investment in PPE and ventilation is required. Preppers were stockpiling sanitisers and masks from Jan, yet our gov prepared nothing and put out a tweet requesting ventilators around 2 months after it was clear they were essential when realistically production could've started in Jan.

Our gov decided to try herd immunity then when they bothered to do the suns realised it was mass murder by negligence and changed tack to a half-hearted lockdown. So yes unnecessary thousands will die, and yes I'll blame the government

they've been following the scientific advice all the way
Yes, which scientists though? Was it the behavioural scientists or the medics? The government didn't introduce restrictions, even though they could see what was happening in other countries and had advance notice. They decided to go with the 'herd immunity' policy which basically involved letting people die.

@Lexijayde44 That is hands down the best post I’ve read on here for months! What a breath of fresh air to read such a polite, sensible and positive post

They can’t predict anything in comparison to any other country given every country is testing in different ways

The numbers literally mean nothing

This is an interesting Germany v UK timeline of responses: www.buzzfeed.com/albertonardelli/coronavirus-timeline-uk-germany-comparison-johnson-merkel

First reported cases were days apart but the main difference with the course of action has testing and tracing. Here's a few handpicked bits from the timeline...

Germany - January 27: Germany registers its first case. Health authorities in the state of Bavaria sayy_ a 33-year-old man contracted the virus from a colleague who was visiting from China. It is believed to be the first case of human-to-human transmission in Europe.

UK - January 31: Chief medical officer Chris Whitty announcess_ the first two UK cases.Public Health England says it is tracing people who have been in contact.

Germany - March 2: Germany begins the month with 140 positive cases, with infections detected in 10 of the country’s 16 regions. The RKI raisess_ its threat level to “moderate”.

Germany has the capacity to run 7,115 tests a day that week, data publishedd_ by the RKI shows. By the end of the week, it will have done 87,863 tests since the beginning of the crisis. Contact tracing is central to the government’s approach.

UK - March 3: 51 people in the UK have now tested positivee_ out of 13,911 tested.

Johnson says “I shook hands with everybody” during a visit to a hospital.

Germany - March 23: The number of positive cases passess_ 31,500, with 144 dead. Testing capacity hits 103,515 per day. Some 361,000 tests are carried out that week.

UK - March 26: Death toll noww_ 578. 11,658 people across the UK have tested positive.

Deputy chief medical officer Jenny Harries rejects the WHO’s advice to “test, test, test”, suggesting it is aimed at less economically developed countries and is “not appropriate” for the UK at this stage of the outbreak.

And so many who’ve died maybe would have died within the next 12 months of illnesses they already have

I've been joking about Dominic Cummings all along but maybe he could go under the bus if Boris needs someone to blame.

Preppers were stockpiling sanitisers and masks from Jan, yet our gov prepared nothing and put out a tweet requesting ventilators around 2 months after it was clear they were essential when realistically production could've started in Jan.

YES.

Perhaps we need a Minister of National Prepping (must be an active prepper), because the preppers were, indeed, ready for this from January and I don't understand how preppers could have had this thing figured out from watching news reports ("well that's obviously worse than they're saying hmmm..." 🤔) and yet even with intelligence officers at their disposal our government security officials had no idea?

Surely this goes to the very heart of security.

Either our ministers didn't do their jobs, or our intelligence community didn't. Which is it?

@Veterinari here is what the WHO were really saying in January (when you're stating they should have started production of XYZ):

mobile.twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152

It is really easy with hindsight to make "wise" cornts, but the reality is that there was a large divergence of opinions and data.

Thing with testing, outside of essential nhs etc, is that if people do isolate, then you don’t need to test

So what if you’ve got it? Currently you isolate anyway with symptoms and they know it’s transmitted through droplets so rate of transmissions is very low if so why bother testing the worried well? They’re right in that it’s a waste of resources

By all means test nhs and workers so they can go back to work but no need to test how bloggs at home with a cough

A friend recently had w private test drvliveref by nurse to her house. Ridiculous. She wasn’t that ill. Has since recovered. Knowing she had it means little bit wasted a test

Germany treats patients at an earlier stage, I read. Probably increases their chances of survival. Russia has a low death rate too. How are places like Switzerland doing, does anyone know?

Sorry typos there

What I mean is that if you’ve are unwell you isolate

If I’ll you go hospital and you’ll be tested

We are all going to get it at some point

Fact

You can’t test everyone

Isolation is not to stop transmission - we don’t have immunity so unless you hide for the next 12 months til there’s a vaccine you are gonna get it

Isolation is to make sure nhs can cope with all the infections

Testing is kind of irrelevant outside of hospitals

Maybe it's because we have an older population living longer.
Except Italy, Spain and Germany all have a larger elderly population.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ageing_of_Europe

Well we might - or we might not. Stupid news article.

Down to lack of planned/co-ordinated action across government - the sort of thing that cobra is supposed to do - rather than let all the individual departments faff about:
Eg:
Ordering ppe
Ordering ventilators
Cooperating with the eu
Planning lockdown
Planning testing
Testing inbound passengers
Planning consistent messaging - (must not)
-all should have been done long ago

Not calling cobra soon enough is the reason we're on the back foot and will have 10 times the deaths we might have had

Let’s see what actually happens before we start a witch hunt.

Comparisons between countries are pointless, too many variables.