I'dWhat do you think of the English government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic so far?

[Twinklelittlestar1]

Following on from a previous thread I'd really like to know what you think?

I mean it's fine if you say the government did badly, and by outcomes it certainly has. But claiming things that aren't true doesn't help your case at all.

I agree with the positive points you’ve listed Mrs Robinson. Unfortunately on the public health response it does seem there would have been better outcomes with swifter interventions. As I said earlier it’s not ‘Government bashing’ for the sake of it, we need to learn from this. That’s why for the sake of families that have lost loved ones a public inquiry should be called www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-53009946

I said earlier with different information it’s likely to changed the response but that’s true of many countries and not just the UK.

Mumratheevergiving
I don’t know enough to comparatively analyse but Germany & Ireland seemed to lockdown earlier

Three times as many people per 1m population have died in Ireland compared to Germany and Denmark - Ireland and Denmark have a similar population size - Ireland just under 5 m, Denmark 5.7 m. Does Ireland have a poorly funded health service?

ImMrsRobinson -I said earlier with different information it’s likely to changed the response but that’s true of many countries and not just the UK.

Precisely so it’s sensible to hold a swift inquiry now to establish what worked, what went wrong and what we can learn from other countries too to help form future policy responses.

Clavinova - I honestly don’t know about Irish or other countries health services funding. As you seem good at getting comparative statistics what was the UK death rate per 1million population so we can compare that too with those countries?

I’m sure there will be plenty of enquires in this and other countries when sufficient information is available.

The NAO report cited in your link to the BBC news article acknowledges that during the crisis tactics changed based on information being updated. It also acknowledges that economic pressures were also a factor.

I wanted to know what people thought of the government's response to covid. I've got my answer. The only argument running contrary to the belief that it's been diabolical is that 'perhaps there were countries where the response has been just as bad' or that perhaps we should 'wait and see what happens (which interestingly seems to have been our governments main strategy in 'addressing' the crisis) . I think the answer to my question which was based on opinions is clear.

Good. Hopefully we won’t need another thread like this then.

@ImMrsRobinson

Good. Hopefully we won’t need another thread like this then.

Don't know about anyone else, but I'll start a thread about anything I like, I don't need you or anyone else's permission...

If you don't like it, don't read it.

ssd and as it’s a public forum I will post any dissenting opinion I like and you also don’t have to read that.

Mumsnet has a very vocal anti Tory element. You knew exactly what answers you would get when you posted the question.

If you post a question about Brexit you'll also know exactly what the responses will be well before you even press the post button.

It doesn't mean the answers are wrong or right but it won't necessarily be a very unbiased response or a particularly accurate survey.

I'm basing my opinion of failure on their inability to be clear, be factual and concise, to allow it to get so outbid hand we have the continuing fear now, for not helping with public fear.

But mostly for not treating the population as intelligent human beings who are fair.

By telling us we are producing world leading and world beating things. Expecting us to think it's amazing but at the same time refusing to acknowledge the very clear failures and reassuring us they've learnt from these.

The fact they think they have been amazing is what worries me.

@Twinklelittlestar1

Ok for a start, Denmark. They locked down before they'd even had one death. Their planning and foresight allowed them to save many lives.

Denmark current deaths - 594
Uk current deaths - 41,481

Their hospitals are now reopened to other health issues and been able to lift lockdown restrictions. They are testing anyone with respiratory symptoms and have mass testing centres in tents and towns across the country.

"Denmark’s mass testing and tracing and low case and death rates mean that they are perfectly positioned to address any future creep of the virus, because their overall cases numbers have been suppressed to stay within manageably low levels."

Exactly and this is why we cannot compare our schools with Denmarks. And that is without taking into account Denmarks much larger classrooms and high staff to child ratios. The government were irresponsible announcing plans for reopening without proper risk assessment. The last month could have been spent on proper consultation and risk assessment with a view to opening as soon as the risk is low enough and for those who need it most first, with those who can volunteering to home educate their children with school support for as long as necessary. Instead it has been spent arguing, finger pointing and backtracking and teacher bashing. The government have made an absolute shambles of the pandemic and we have become a laughing stock.

Absolutely, you post away, but this thread won't be the last one asking how people feel about the government not by a long shot.

I'd like them to stop lying. They lie about almost everything, almost all the time. It's embarrassing that they expect people to believe it, and it's embarrassing that people DO believe it.

Accurate data recording

I don't believe they did this. They 'managed' the reporting to ensure that the death rate never went over 1000 a day. At the time of reporting. They knew what that would do to morale, and what it would do to public opinion. So they fudged it. I know that daily reporting isn't accurate anyway, but they fudged that carefully. Obviously they didn't have anything big to chuck out to the media to hide the number (like they did with 30,000 deaths or 40,000 deaths), so had to hide it themselves.

England's Chief Nursing Officer, Ruth May, and England’s deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam, have both been kicked off the Coronavirus Press Briefing sessions after they both failed to join the mass of sycophants supporting Dominic Cummings.

May was actually in the room during meeting preparation on 1st June, but during the rehearsal she gave the wrong answer to the Cummings question so was removed.

Speaking of accurate data recording maybe the question that would answer any ‘messing up’ would be how India have managed this little miracle:

310,760 infections and only 8,895 deaths.

Looking promising for future world pandemic crisis handling. World leading.

The decision to send elderly patients from hospitals to care homes en masse without testing was the worst possible thing.
Matt Hancock will have to answer for that.

@ImMrsRobinson you are so consumed by trying deflect the governments failings. You actually sound like a politician to me

Between 17 March and 15 April, around 25,000 people were discharged from hospitals into care homes, compared to around 35,000 over this period in 2019. It is not known how many had COVID-19 at the point of discharge. On 17 March, NHSE&I advised hospitals to discharge urgently all patients medically fit to leave in order to increase capacity to support those with acute healthcare needs. Due to government policy at the time, not all patients were tested for COVID-19 before discharge, with priority given to patients with respiratory illness or flu-like symptoms. On 15 April,
the Department confirmed a new policy of testing all those being discharged from hospitals into care homes, which was followed by instructions to that effect from NHSE&I on 16 April (paragraphs 3.19 and 3

Source: nao.org.uk

I’m an Auditor so I like to be in possession of all of the evidence before I report my conclusions

The decision to send elderly patients from hospitals to care homes without testing them first, essentially sent COVID out to little incubators full of other vulnerable people up and down the country.

And the prevalence of agency staff at such homes, without PPE meant that there was very easy way for the virus to spread from home to home to home.
Many of those agency staff also make community visits to vulnerable people.

And because the death rate was so high amongst this group of vulnerable people and those caring for them who did not have adequate PPE, those who know what they have done will tell us it’s not that straight forward.

I dont think this is a left / right issue, I think most peope think BJ has been shit.

The decision about when to go into lockdown was wrong.
The decision to put untested patients back into care homes was appalling.

BJ and his cabinet clearly has no interest in our school aged children.

Track and trace is joke.

I can almost forgive BJ for starting lockdown late, it was a new virus. I cant reconcile his subsequent decision making particularly with regards to Dominic Cummings.

By keeping Dominic Cummings, the government lost the public goodwill and it is going to be almost impossible to win it back. This alone makes the current pandemic very dangerous.

Mumsnet has a very vocal anti Tory element.

MN also has a very vocal pro-Tory element.

I could tell you right now what certain posters will say if the appear on this thread. And of course, some of you already have.

Ditto a very vocal pro-Brexit element.

Bizarrely, both try to position themselves as somehow martyred, oppressed groups – even when the Tories have been in power for 10 years and the UK has legally left the EU.

I guess it's better than taking responsibility.