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 think this has a lot to do with the UK press CONTINUING to report and discuss the high levels of death in Italy yet barely touch on or report their own rate. I find I have to actively search for death rates in England and the UK as often they aren't readily available.

I actually saw a headline yesterday that said;
'Italy, first EU country to pass 30,000 deaths'

There was barely a commotion when the UK passed 30,000.

This is one reason I think as well as other factors such as:
-Perseverance of herd immunity
-Unwillingness to take seriously at the start (BJ shaking hands etc)
-Slowness to shut things down e.g school compared to other countries
-The fact we had such a head start on preparations and still failed to act, i.e lack of PPE/chronically underfunded NHS leading to an already overused service being potentially decimated.
-Being an island and failing to use this to any sort of advantage.

Finally , the fact after all these failures it is continually lauded as a success by BJ.

I don’t know about how other countries feel about the UK (though I suspect most are not really bothered either way), but there are a lot of people on here and elsewhere who seemingly have very little sympathy for their fellow citizens.

I think stereotyping has created a lot of problems here. For instance, we were told the death rate in Italy was high because it has an older population (which it is, slightly older on average than the UK) but also that older people in Italy were more likely to live in intergenerational households where they were more exposed to transmission. By contrast, I have seen plenty of posts here blaming UK deaths on obesity, despite the evidence that most victims are frail people in their 80s for whom obesity is far from a problem.

When the pandemic started, deaths per country were presented like some reverse Premier League table, with no attention to underlying factors in the way data are collected or differences in health systems and the population. It was a long time before we were told that the French and Irish figures included people in care homes but ours initially did not. Another complication is that almost all the deaths in Sweden have taken place in care homes which have not allowed visitors since mid March. Despite this, we get photos of people sitting outside a cafe in Stockholm, and discussions about herd immunity but nothing about what is happening in care homes there. Did they not buy any PPE either?

We also have a media that loves to present everything in such hero versus villain terms. They change the narrative depending on what will make the bigger story. A few weeks ago the government was praised for setting up Nightingale hospitals. Now they are being criticised for the spending money on this. How would the media have responded if we had seen pictures, as we did from Italy, of people waiting in corridors and ambulances?

Sorry, this is a long post to say that there is part of the media that is obsessed with UK exceptionalism. When it suits them, the government is like Churchill’s coalition battling against the world. Then, almost without warning, the government is filled with exceptionally venal and stupid people who couldn’t organise their way out of a paper bag.

I think the government’s response has been mixed. I am sure that is equally true of the Italian government. At this stage, it looks as if they both got different things wrong but only time will tell.

I actually saw a headline yesterday that said;
'Italy, first EU country to pass 30,000 deaths'
There was barely a commotion when the UK passed 30,000.

Nonsense;

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52564183
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-uk-death-toll-hospital-care-homes-nhs-a9502151.html
www.itv.com/news/2020-05-06/coronavirus-latest-figures-wednesday-uk-cases-deaths-europe-highest-scotland-wales-england-northerireland/
news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-another-649-people-die-with-covid-19-taking-uk-total-to-30-076-11984054
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8292891/UK-announces-coronavirus-victims.html

PeggysGettingCrazy

I keep reading this about Corbyn, I'd honestly like to heard some reasons as to how things could have been worse under Labour? Not hyperbole about Corbyn just solid reasons as to why people keep saying we are 'lucky' to have been under a Torie leadership during this pandemic.

I'd honestly like to heard some reasons as to how things could have been worse under Labour? Not hyperbole about Corbyn just solid reasons as to why people keep saying we are 'lucky' to have been under a Torie leadership during this pandemic.

I said they could also be better.

For a start he gives a shit less about business. Our company owners were concerned about him anyway.

I suspect the economy would have been more damaged. Leading to more deaths.

My point wasnt that he would definitely be worse. My point was that he possibly could be, and people blaming those that voted tory and say Labour would have done better have no idea.

My personal opinion is that he was a weak leader and the people giving him advice were shit for years. No reason to think would be better. It could have been. It could also have been worse.

*@DippyAvocado"

"There was then a window of 2-3 weeks to act decisively, as Germany did for example. The UK government did nothing, other than focus on how it could take economic advantage of other countries' lockdowns.
Covid-19 was found to have spread to Germany by 27th January. It was found in UK on 31st Jan.

I'm not sure you can say that Germany were decisive. They did things in dribs and drabs which doesn't strike me as decisive:

13th March
They closed schools and nurseries and stopped visits to those in nursing homes.

15th March
They closed borders with 5 neighbouring countries.

17th March
They closed all bars, clubs, theaters, opera houses, museums, exhibitions, movie theatres, casinos, gyms, swimming pools, playgrounds, and brothels.
Also religious congregations, civic associations and tourism.

Restaurants were still allowed to operate under restrictions, but had to close by 6pm. Only essential shops (supermarkets, pharmacies, banks, post offices) were allowed to stay open.

22nd March
It was decided to disallow gatherings of more than 2 people, outside of households until April 19th at the earliest.

The UK
Schools closed on 20th March followed by a National lockdown on 23rd March.

I fail to understand how you can say the UK did nothing when their actions are compared.

One difference between the two is that Germany had a lot more intensive care beds and ventilators at the outset and did more testing in the wider community.

Christian Drosten, director of the Institute of Virology at the Charité hospital in Berlin has stated:
"While other countries were conducting a limited number of tests of older patients with severe cases of the virus, Germany was conducting many more tests that included milder cases in younger people."

www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1395

Our government haven’t said we are struggling and more people died than necessary.

This thread is the biggest load of bllcks so far and we have had some. Amazing amount of ignorance and armchair politics. Italy and UK have both done our best in slightly differnet scenarios. I am incredulous that so many people have no idea how much science, and learning from other pandemics have influenced our tactics, and it would have been the same if Labour had been in charge

@NotEverythingIsBlackandWhite but the clear facts you state simply do not play into the narrative of a lot of people on mumsnet that the UK did nothing and EVERY OTHER COUNTRY did more. It’s a tired narrative now and however much you pull the facts kit it won’t go away. It is called propaganda.

I think that British people had very unrealistic expectations of what the government could actually do. If they’d followed the likes of NZ/Australia in closing borders there would have been an outcry. It should have happened but it didn’t. After that point though there wasn’t really anything that could have been done differently. Once it was already in the country we weren’t going to eradicate it. The healthcare system is absolutely shit in Britain (this isn’t Boris fault, this is the result of 20+ years of bad policy). They’re actually doing really well by treating the majority of serious cases given what they have to work with. It’s an absolute miracle the the healthcare system hasn’t completely collapsed. I’m quite surprised really. I was expecting much worse.

@NoMorePoliticsPlease yes. But people keep coming on threads saying that the rest of the world is HORRIFIED by the UK. For one I doubt they give two fucks about the UK. But even if they do I cannot find the facts that would justify such horror compared to every other European country.

@Reginabambina you were expecting much worse because the UK likes to diss the NHS at every opportunity imaginable. And shock - it has actually stood up to the test. I am also shocked because we constantly hear how shit it is and how crap we are. Seems the NHS isn’t all that crap. But let’s gloss over that and focus on something else. Ah yes we locked down too late. Did we? We haven’t overwhelmed the health service so why did we need to lock down sooner? And it goes on and on and on. Propaganda.

Our PM cynically announced that lockdown would start to be lifted from Monday on the day that we became the worst in Europe, and our right wing media all made that their headline instead of the horrific death rate.

Could we not have been stricter with asking people flying in from hotspots to self isolate for 14 days?

I think the WHO have been shambolic. They advised there was no point stopping flights coming in. Yet the countries that closed borders and stopped flights got things under control quicker, have a lower death rate and have come out of lockdown quicker

One minute they are praising China, then they praise Sweden! They say no point in testing, then test, test, test.

I think our government could have acted quicker. Again we have that sense of ‘exceptionalism’ Boris waking around shaking hands in March...

Cheltenham and the Liverpool Madrid match should never have happened.

Everyone hates us

@HeadPotato how can you seriously think the media are right wing - they hate the tories right now, hate brexit - a lot of the bbc are related or married to labour members. Those headlines are to make ppl leave their homes so that same ppl can then blame the govt when it fails.

In understand that per capita the US has similar fatalities as the whole of Europe.
Numbers per contry means nothing.

TheClitterati

Boris Johnson's speech on 3rd Feb tells you all you need to know. While watching Italy and China our govt was positioning to be an economic "superhero", staying open, making economic advances while the rest of the world locked down.

I think there is disingenuous editing in your link though.

His speech was regarding free trade after Brexit - he starts that section/paragraph with a reference to 'autarkic rhetoric' (autarkic countries are those which do not participate in international trade and which do not receive any outside support or aid.)

and finishes with;

"the right of the populations of the earth to buy and sell freely among each other."

Have other countries stopped importing goods from abroad? Didn't the EU Commissioner make a speech telling members to keep trading goods with each other as well?

If you think that then you clearly have no idea what hospitals all round the country were doing from early March!

which was about a month too late.
from early feb it was clear it was spreading fast and not contained to wuhan anymore.

I have friends in Toronto who concurrently that the rest of the world is laughing at us.

it would have been the same if Labour had been in charge
I don’t think people are suggesting that, though. This isn’t a Labour/Conservative polarisation. It is that this particular government, the one in charge now, have been outstandingly rubbish. A Labour government, with whoever had been in charge, might have been rubbish too.

from early feb it was clear it was spreading fast and not contained to wuhan anymore.

One of the experts currently criticising the government:

Devi Sridhar - 3:45 PM · Feb 17, 2020

WHO clearly saying it is NOT calling #COVID19 a pandemic b/c majority of cases are in China & majority of cases outside of China have direct link to China. DrMikeRyan#factsnotfear.

The healthcare system is absolutely shit in Britain (this isn’t Boris fault, this is the result of 20+ years of bad policy)

The healthcare system has actually never been as good - if you mean it is busy and has a long waiting list, yes, but then it has never treated so many people for many things, and at such advanced ages. When you see people in their 70's, 80's and 90's being treated for heart attack, stroke and cancer, orthopeadics, etc etc, and they are still alive, it is pretty amazing. Ditto premature babies, and multiple births, disabled children with lists of chronic problems being given life extending treatment.

And it is all free and open access to all.

The healthcare system is absolutely shit in Britain

Good god. Some people don’t know a good thing when it slaps them in the face do they. Free healthcare to all. We have a brilliant system. Omg I am shocked to read Bollox like this.

The other point which makes me wonder whether anyone actually stops and thinks - the half term holiday returners. Often MN's are saying they should have all been put in isolation. Well sure. But that's 100's of thousands of people. You could have "requested" that they strayed at home, but certainly you could not have, in a democracy, forcibly isolated that many men, woman and children, at that point, without a national outcry.