Italy v England. Why the different levels of sympathy?

[Whatsthis1515]

I am noticing that people feel sorry for Italy regarding their death toll but for the UK, people are scathing and pointing fingers. Why is this? I know Italy was supposed to be a lesson to us, but surely in that case, they didn't do the right thing either?

Interested to know what you all think.

Thanks

I'm English and just want to say thank you Peggy. What you said means a lot right now.

Its ok. I am just appalled that people do it. And that English people also encourage.

Whatever, is going on in the UK, people born here didn't choose it. Didn't choose how the government handled it.

Even if you voted Tory, I don't remember any party have 'what we will do in a pandemic' as part of their manifesto.

And let's be honest, the Labour Party have had 2 leaders during this. If Labour had been in and Corbyn PM, this could have been much much worse. May have been better, but could have been alot worse. No one knows.

It’s all in your head. There is no different level of sympathy! Other countries really don’t care enough about the UK to have differing sympathy levels. We do like to beat ourselves up though.

Not much more warning. It all happened so fast. March was crazy across Europe

My son returned from an Italian ski in Feb. We did not want him to go because of C19, but we reluctantly let him go on 18th Feb.
The day he flew back (22) they were locking down regions in Italy. I was worried about him returning. It was all over the headlines and that's when it really hit me.

So if I (an average person with no experts to surround me) was worrying by mid Feb then I disagree that the Govt did not have much notice.

My Italian colleague hot footed it out of the UK back in March and returned to Italy at the height of the pandemic there because he was so concerned at how our government was reacting

And an Italian colleague of mine said she was felt very lucky that she was here rather than there.

It's easy to find an anecdote that fits your narrative.

We'd have far fewer deaths if we were less fat and if we hadn't had a triage system that kept people out of hospital until it was too late. You can blame the government for the second thing but not the first.

Also our BAME population is very large and has been shown to be more vulnerable, only France probably has comparable ethnic minority percentages.

Other countries really don’t care enough about the UK to have differing sympathy levels

This. Why does everyone on MN think that other countries are constantly talking about the UK? That's British exceptionalism at work - everyone is so interested in us.

They aren't and couldn't care less. They worry about their own people and problems.

@cologne4711 spot on. Ffs people do you really think people outside this country even know what is going on let alone obsess about it. Also the UK hasn’t ‘done worse’ (whatever that means) than other countries. There is a criminal investigation happening in Spain over its handling of care homes and last time I looked we had similar death rates to Spain, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and France. And by the way it isn’t over yet!!! Germany is having to lockdown various regions again. But we have this constant stream of hating ourselves. Beating ourselves up. Regardless what the facts are. And we think others do the same. Face it - they don’t. And yes we can all come up with anecdotes about other people. I know people also who fled back to Italy to then be imprisoned in their homes and wishing they were back here. That’s one anecdote though. And thank you @Peggysgettingcrazy - you always sum it up pretty well.

Per capita we've a lower death toll than Italy and they don't include their carehome figures.
Hospitals were ramping up Covid services and ready when the first patient started arriving in hospitals.
Ppe is a global problem,were not the only ones with problems.
Most care homes are private,they should have had ppe already in use as basic when caring for people but this didn't seem to be the case.
Ventilators are not a magic bullet ,only patients that will be helped by them are put on them(and individually need them longer than we thought as we learn more).
There is no treatment only management of symptoms.
People dying in care homes,these are frail people not in care homes on a whim.Why would you move these people to hospital to die,in unfamiliar surroundings,scared and bewildered.Why aren't you there protesting every year when we have a bad flu year as that rips through too.
Why are so many people breaking the lockdown and then blaming the government, they're having to scale back any plans to loosen lock down as the infection rate has stopped falling thank to the way the British public are behaving.
I agree about the flights though and the indecisiveness of the government and individuals then thousands of people/children came back from skiing in Italy and the advise was patchy.
And I'm tired of being called a hero because do you know how that feels everytime a patient dies?
We're now trying to rejig hospitals to accomodate Covid and non Covid patients, it's not easy but we're trying to keep you safe when you come to hospital.Be patient,we do get it, we've had our own appointments/ops etc cancelled too.
Sorry if what I and other health workers say doesn't tally with the newspaper reports .

Don't forget that when Trump closed the borders to flights from China, then Europe, then UK, in February, he was heavily criticised by the WHO.
I can just imagine the headlines if our Gov had tried to do the same!
Mistakes were made, and clearly the lockdown, in that a lot of people think we should have lockdowned sooner, and others, not at all. The mistake, i think, is that the guidelines were open to interpretation.
Initially told that the police were stopping people buying Easter eggs, and only essential shopping, etc police were shaming people for buying pots of paint, etc
Exercise was also open to interpretation. Going out for exercise seems to have different meanings to different people. I was shocked to learn that others were going for 10 mile walks and 20 mile runs.

And as above, we've only just begun.The virus still has lots of us to infect worldwide yet.

@hagisonthehill. Finally a balanced and realistic look at what is happening. And you are on the frontline. I for one don’t think it is a shitshow and thank you enormously for the hard work to make sure it isn’t. You must find it depressing reading some of the people on here talking about how bad it apparently is. Thank you

Italy's health system got overwhelmed - half their deaths are in Lombardia which is a huge amount for one region. By contrast the UK deaths have been more evenly distributed with some pressure spots in London and Birmingham, but at no point did the NHS become overwhelmed (we haven't really used the Nightingales).

And yes people are not grasping that we are only at the beginning. We have an awful long way to go. We can’t stop this virus we can only slow it down. It is going to infect the majority of us.

@Hagisonthehill that is such a reasoned and comprehensive response.

Hindsight is 20/20. We have never faced a crisis like this before. No matter what the course of action, it would have been easy to criticise. At the start, yes mistakes were made. But the WHO advice and the lack of transparency coming out of China didn’t help matters. We’ve been told several times that countries are not using the same parameters to count deaths (because of COVID-19/ with COVID-19) or how care home deaths are included.

Thank you both but I expect as the MN masses get out of bed I will get a kicking!
I get some of the anxiety though,a colleague just recovered from Covid said that it takes away that worry at least and as much as we think we're ok that thought is always there.

*We will never know WHY we have such a high death toll, because they will never tell us the truth.

They won't tell us if it is because of PPE, or because they wouldn't close the borders, or because we went into lockdown too late. They won't tell us if it is because some groups cannot absorb VitD, or because we are a nation of overweight, unhealthy crunch potatoes. They won't tell us if it is because 11 million people working in central London spend 1-2 hours commuting on overcrowded trains or in other cities they are just as overcrowded on rubbish transport that takes longer than it should.*

I don't understand this at all. Who are "they" and why do you think anybody has any answers ?

We watched the awful scenes from there and did virtually nothing to prepare ourselves for the same.

Huge increase In ICU capacity, clearing hospitals and building entire hospitals from scratch in 9 days is not 'doing nothing'
My trust had also been preparing from very early on.

This. Why does everyone on MN think that other countries are constantly talking about the UK?

Other countries aren't talking about the UK but MN is rammed with very middle class UK liberal progressives, who think they are being talked about and who can't stand this country and never miss a chance to put it down. It's because of this paranoia, and also a romanticised view of the continent, that they feel the need to join in some imaginary hatred of the UK from abroad. It's all in their heads

Maybe people are sympathetic to Italy because their death rate is high despite locking down Lombardy around 21st Feb and then locking down nationally on 9th March BEFORE the WHO declared a pandemic. They were pro-active and decisive in this respect.

@Flaxmeadow OMG could not have put it better myself. Drives me insane. Why don’t they just go and live on the continent if they hate it in the UK so much. Ah because they know deep down it is not really reality!!!

We'd have far fewer deaths if we were less fat and if we hadn't had a triage system that kept people out of hospital until it was too late. You can blame the government for the second thing but not the first.

You could also say (if you were a hateful sort of person) we'd have fewer deaths if we had fewer black and brown people living here. Why are you blaming the victims?

As you say, we would have had fewer deaths if we took people into hospital earlier in their illness, as Germany seems too have done.

Italy didn't entirely fail to act - they created red zones in the north early on. The goverment did too little, waiting too long to cancel public events and impose a nationwide lockdown. But when they did act, they did it decisively. The country locked down hard for nearly 2 months. There is no discussion of schools going back before September.

And so... Their new cases hit a defined peak and dropped due to lockdown that is still more strict than the UK's even after 'easing' on May 4. The UK meanwhile has still not hit a defined peak of new cases - it's bouncing around between 4500 and 6000+ a day. The deaths will follow.

I think people outside the UK feel about the UK CV19 situation the way they feel about the USA- it's a damned shame and very sad, but it is the result of the governments that people voted for.

Why don’t they just go and live on the continent if they hate it in the UK so much

They probably tried that, but with their constant petit bourgeois whining about the UK, the locals will have sent then back here, unfortunately

@milveycrohn personally I think that the government kept exercise open to interpretation on purpose and I am so happy that they have. They trust that people will find their level.

My father had a stroke last year. He has always been a sportsman. Super fit. He retired and did long countryside walks (he lives in a remote area with few cases). He recovered enough to be able to walk again. It was a massive mental health goal for him. The pride he had in being able to walk again was massive. Clearly now Covid has happened we are shielding both my parents. But my dad still goes out for his daily walks. He is mid 70s and walks 9 miles some days. It is hugely hugely important for his mental health and recovery from stroke. He meets no one it is so remote. I have been impressed how disciplined he has been. If somebody turned round and said he could only go out for 30 minutes I would have a lot less respect for the adult way we are treating this. Giving people the respect that they can make these decisions. Living in a country of 65m people, there will always be some twats. But for the vast majority of the sensible I am happy that we have a policy of making it work for them and not penalising them because of the twats.

@Flaxmeadow petty bourgeois whining