Boris announcement- November. Does he know something?

[Yetiyoga]

Not sure if this has been suggested. We are supposed to find out next week about how successful the Oxford vaccine has gone aren't we? Do you think Boris Johnson knows the result and that is why he thinks we could be back to normal by November / Christmas? Or am I being naive/ too optimistic?
I just can't see 'normal' by Christmas as things are currently. And I'm fairly relaxed about it all.
I have a first niece / nephew due late October so it would mean the world to be able to meet them this year.

@DebLou47

Just seems everyone is bashing Boris so I won't say anything more but no government has had to deal with a pandemic again and if it was Kier he would have been bashed too !!! The fact is no one knows what will happen and after yesterday I feel a bit more positive than doom and gloom

Do you genuinely look at him and think 'he did all he could?'

No one thinks he has - not even Can narrative MP s!

I am not mad for Keir Starmer but I think he would have worked harder and been more clear.

Should say 'conservative MPs'

Coronavirus: The blame game has started - and Public Health England is first in the firing line

Blaming a replaceable administrative system may be the government's easiest solution when the inquiry comes.

Sophy Ridge Sky News

news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-the-blame-game-has-started-and-public-health-england-is-first-in-the-firing-line-12030999

Well PHE have been systematically over reporting deaths for weeks now, so yes they will have questions to answer.

Generally it is certainly true that big mistakes have been made and continue to be made, but I find it thoroughly depressing the level of political tribalism being exhibited here. The government has after all just been following the advice given for months.

Could they have locked down earlier? Yes.

Would it have saved lives? Absolutely.

Should they be urging people to return to the office? No in my opinion, but I can understand the rationale for doing so.

Look at that, all without vitriol or abuse.

the level of political tribalism

no tribalism here, just a deep sense of unease and anxiety because we are not being governed with any degree of care, hard work, intelligence or honesty. Not only that, a deep sense of betrayal and hurt. Calling it tribalism merely dismisses all of that. And I can’t imagine how much worse that would be if I had lost family members or friends to the virus.

If Johnson and Cummings had handled this crisis properly and in good faith, I would have been delighted.

@larrygrylls no I don't but everyone is so busy slagging him off and I don't agree Kier would have done better or any others !!!! No one looks at the good like furlough etc just focus on the negative

People on here splitting hairs about New Zealand in an effort to defend Boris...the UK has the top 3 worst death rate in the entire world. Pick ANY country (apart from the US and Brazil) and they’ve done better. And the awful thing is that we had more warning than most. It hit Italy, Spain and Portugal earlier than the UK. We saw it coming, and the government did nothing. Boris didn’t even bother showing up to any of the Cobra meetings in the run up to the crisis. Chris Vallance has said this week that they were advised to lock down earlier but didn’t. The fact that the organisers of Cheltenham are huge Tory donors might have had something to do with that.

The sleaze and corruption surrounding all the lucrative covid related contracts being awarded without public tender to personal friends of Cummings and Gove is absolutely disgusting.

When people say, who could have done better, the answer is probably anyone. For a wealthy nation our response has been an utter shambles. It’s embarrassing and devastating for those who have needlessly lost loved ones.

As for the recent announcement, Boris wants it all to get better soon but for all of the reasons above I don’t trust a word he says.

Organisers of Cheltenham are huge Tory donors
🐷 Snouts firmly embedded in the trough ☹️

To get the economy to recover you need people to feel confident

To get people to feel confident you don't stop reporting, you don't go against the scientific advise, you don't push blame onto care homes, you don't pretend it's all ok

The government has after all just been following the advice given for months

Could they have locked down earlier? Yes.

Patrick vallance said SAGE advised the government to lockdown on 16th March, but the government didn't follow that advice. They waited until 23rd.

It is not political tribalism to point this out - I just want to feel like my government - whatever party - is focused on the first priority which is protecting lives.

It's very confusing. I'm a civil servant and we had an official email on Thursday urging us to use August and September to plan for a likely even worse second wave in the winter colliding with the flu season. c120k deaths was mentioned.

They’re planning to whitewash the second wave away somehow.

This line that they are all as bad, all would have handled it this badly is just not true. It is easy to say but it is lazy thinking, and it is said to try to get Johnson off the hook.

I do not believe others would have failed to chair COBRA for example. That is a huge departure from normal British political standards in both parties.

People wanted Boris because he was 'different', now they ask us to believe 'he's just the same as all the rest'.

Johnson is indeed different - in very negative ways.

He's delegated the powers to Local Authorities to implement local lockdowns, so responsibly is off him.

If the LAs do lock down and close businesses, there will be no furlough scheme or other support for businesses available this time round.

Yep this is an important step and worth noting. The buck will stop with LAs and as such it will be split from the large amount of financial support received this time.

There is certainly plenty of reasonable 'worst case' planning going on, but no-one really wants to predict if the more doom-laden scenarios will be the ones that happen. But we need to be ready if they do.

If we can get though this A/W, then we are set to control it long term.

But an element of that is going to be greater social distancing for quite some time to come.

Also on local lockdowns unless the government give extra money to LAs to fund one (which I doubt but we’ll see) then they will be very reluctant. If you can’t bolster shut businesses with schemes many will close. LAs would be wary of having such an impact.

There's going to be a shitshow if one la does shut and one doesn't - will there be national criteria e.g. positive cases/100000 or anything?

@TheMurk - every other European country isn't back to work and running normally. Barcelona announced a lockdown this week. Lots of things aren't open or back to normal in Ireland. Medium to large gatherings, concerts, conferences are still banned in all European countries to my knowledge. Hotels only just opening up in some.

The government has after all just been following the advice given for months.

If only that were actually true. Only this week, Vallance said it wasn't time to stop working from home, next day Johnson says 'it's time to get back to work'.

They are making all this shit up on the fly. They are a bunch of incompetents, in post because of their belief in Brexit, not for any other reason. I don't like Starmer that much either, but he's not a corrupt scumbag. Unfortunately that can't be said for anyone else in our current cabinet.

LabyrinthLoafer. Please find your inner strength to demand a decent standard of government, I don't care about left and right, just competent.

This^
I'm flabbergasted there is not a greater public outcry for an immediate enquiry; the death rate,
policy to move people from hospitals into care home settings, dropping testing so quickly (when countries like Germany implemented it successfully much earlier on), the tracing App delay, the untendered PPE and testing contracts to mates companies including those with Conservative MPs in lucrative positions as advisors, the fact that lockdown was enacted by the Government a week after SAGE advised them to. Furlough has helped enormously as a blanket measure in the immediate crisis but a more nuanced approach is needed longer term. We didn't expect all decisions to be right but lessons need to be learnt NOW by this Government and by us all so we have better success moving forward. It's not 'Boris bashing' to ask the Government to be transparent and accountable.

For those pointing the finger at PHE recording measures, the important figure is the excess deaths over this period. Just as there's variance by hospital we need to understand how to refine the approach to minimise these.

The big question for me that Johnson hasn't outlined is what is the Government's plan for quarantine and international travel going forward? We are now in a reasonable position that the majority of people can resume everyday activities. I'm sure nobody wants a repeat of importing cases with no measures at our airports!

Like many working parents I am desperate that my children are able to return to school and go on to have an academic year with as little disruption as possible. As much as i'd love life to go back 'to normal' mass gatherings from October just don't seem sensible. Johnson does seem very gung-ho towards the disease; not attending Cobra briefings, handshaking patients with Covid and he & his pregnant partner were at Twickenham on 7th March, the same day they had cancelled international matches in Ireland. SAGE advised the country to lockdown entirely just a week later. They contracted the disease. It seens reasonable to treat what Johnson says and what he does with caution.

Would an enquiry look into where Boris was when he hadn't been seen in public for days on end? Was he really napping 3 hours a day?

If Boris has quit after being in hospital I think he would have been a figure of sympathy since it's well documented how long it takes to recover when you've had CV so bad you've been hospitalized but making sure that No Deal happens seems to be a bigger priority to him

When is he taking paternity leave?

He's wanting to give people a hope to cling to.... it's easier to take this on in short chunks: November doesn't sound so bad: "Another four months - I've done it once, I can do it again".

I think there'll be at least another 4 months after that - which will take us through to March and will be a year in total. But if you tell people a year at the beginning of the pandemic, it's really bad for morale.

I also think there will be a lot of discontent if people aren't allowed to socialise freely with loved ones at Xmas.

I think people will socialize freely over Xmas regardless of guidelines.

I think people will socialize freely over Xmas regardless of guidelines.

For me he lacks honesty, clarity and compassion. He might be great at economics but he can’t link it to humanity. He made unethical decisions to save the economy but has ended up messing up both. Yes hindsight is a useful thing but I think a lot of us have willing him to sort himself out since February. I thought there might have been a turning point when he went through it himself but no, instead he flaunts his return to health with press ups?? Words fail me.