What would you have done had you been in charge?

[Hellishcrusade]

Let's say from January, you were in Boris Johnson's position. What would you have done when and how do you think the public would have reacted to it/ how would you have enforced it? I'd be really interested to know what people think because there's so much criticism and wildly different opinions being floated on here.
To be clear, I'm not in support of Boris particularly one way or the other and I'm definitely not smart enough to have made any good decisions! I'm just curious as to what others think as there seem to be strong opinions.

Firstly, wind back to 2016, I would have fully implemented all the findings and recommendations from Operation Cygnus, so we would have been way better prepared for a pandemic from
the start.

I would have attended the fucking COBRA meetings in Jan/Feb so I had at least a vague inkling of how serious this all was and not been fannying about on holiday in Mustique whilst infection was spreading unchecked in the U.K.

It was crystal clear we were going to need to lockdown and stop travel at least 2-3 weeks before we did, should have got there way earlier, not just watched the shit hit in other countries and wait until it was that bad here to act.

I wouldn’t have been boasting about shaking everybody’s hands in hospitals.

I would have sacked bloody Cummings! That would have gained BJ so much more respect and trust from everybody.

I would have followed WHO guidelines on testing rather than make our own shit up.

I would have cancelled Cheltenham.
It was criminal for it to go ahead. Italy was literally playing out what would happen to us. They were a few weeks ahead of us. It was obvious what Cheltenham would do. And yet, it went ahead. Madness. This is not even something that has benefitted from hindsight. This was blindingly fucking obvious.

I would not have allowed hundreds/thousands of football fans to fly in from Madrid to N England, where covid was already raging. Again, no hindsight used here, I knew it was mad at the time!

Oh and perhaps I would have held a televised lashing for Dominic Cummings. Pay per view to help the economy.

Shielded all vulnerable people, and told everyone else to get on with it.

@cyclingmad

Christ another thread this has been done to death already. Seriously do people have nothing better to do than keep have circular discussions over and over again

Sorry, I haven't seen any threads asking this specifically and I feel like I spend way too much time here, if you could send links I'd love to see the replies!

@ekidmxcl

Oh and perhaps I would have held a televised lashing for Dominic Cummings. Pay per view to help the economy.

Oh dear, I suspect this wouldn't have got past any ethics committee, as tempting as it may be! We could go all Game of Thrones and I bet Priti Patel would have been on the list!

Latest quarantine vulnerable groups only with extra support.
Everyone else business as usual.
Used all that money wasted on propping up frozen economy to up NHS facilities and no closed down services.

Would have quarantined all those coming back from italy after half term and not allowed them to return to school.

updated the symptoms list earlier to include loss of smell/taste
update the child symptoms list now to include fatigue, off food, temperature etc that are childsymptoms.

banned some of the big sporting events.

locked down two weeks earlier. or at least one.

introduced mask wearing earlier. (from beginning of march maybe. )

What New Zealand did. Like them, we're an island, which makes border restrictions very easy.

Beginning of January timing wise, we KNEW Of the infection and it’s source already at that point.

Brought in proper quarantining at the very least for those travelling into/out of the country. Actually I’d just have closed the borders! Absolutely ridiculous that travel wasn’t the very first thing dealt with.

Restricted travel to only the absolutely necessary - no holidays, no unnecessary business trips, maybe would have allowed compassionate travel only

Banned mass gatherings! Completely irresponsible not to have done this as one of the very first things.

Compulsory masks outside of home

A proper lockdown, not the half assed crap we got which did fuck all!

Implemented much better testing regimes

Not farted around with backhanders and looking after my mates when it came to procuring tests, masks and ppe.

Moved all education and work that could be done online/at home to that method. Utterly baffles me how across the world this was done pretty much instantly and relatively smoothly in most places yet we handled this appallingly too.

Introduced a temporary universal basic income - much simpler, quicker, easier and very likely cheaper than all the daft little rules on furloughing etc

Keep up with all cancer screening & in cities who had more than one hospital, make one be used for covid & the other non covid. totally agree with this

USED the nightingale hospitals for covid patients - that’s what they were built for utterly disgraceful waste of money there!

@icecreamandcandyfloss you and I rarely if ever agree yet I agree with much if not all of your post

I might have been hated at first, but I think once people realised just how serious it was they’d have appreciated my efforts.

But like several other pps I recognise it’s a HUGE responsibility

An earlier stricter lockdown would have been more effective and wouldn’t have needed to last as long

@sheepandcow totally agree! We were geographically in a great position to have managed it well and all our advantages were ignored

Things I did in Feb/early March:
Stopped shaking hands (even though the other meeting attendees were .)
Stayed at home as much as possible including wfh because I could.
Withdrew the dc from school a week before the schools closed.
In retrospect I think I was right on all of those.
As PM I would have stopped Cheltenham and big sports events in February. I would have done whatever Italy was doing as soon as it became apparent we were following them, to try and leverage the 2 weeks notice. I would have started online lessons asap and spent the 'Eat Out' money on schools ability to distance or do remote learning for secondary schools.
I wouldn't have stopped testing or started telling people to get back to the office.

@Graphista I absolutely agree with everything in your post.

And after seeing how fucking stupid people were going to Bournemouth beach on those hot sunny days with no social distancing at all, I WOULD HAVE CLOSED THE BEACHES AGAIN.

DEFINITELY brought in face masks earlier on.

Definitely sacked Cummins.

Kept the parks open.

Not cancelled the exams quite so quickly.

I stand by what I was screaming at BoJo to do at the time(s);

Gone and chaired the cobra meetings
Lockdown decisively much earlier and more strictly
Made masks advisable then mandatory in shops etc
Accepted ventilators from those who were designing and could build at low cost quickly
Shut airports for all but repatriation and early
Resourced the police to issue on the spot fines for breaking lockdown

Created a central online national curriculum, made return to physical school optional and instead have much smaller set groups of children meeting face to face for social skill development
Done a better job of track and trace
Done a better job of testing

In retrospect;

Allowed care home visits to continue
Not cancelled all those medical appointments
Chased GPs and nurses back to work face to face in GP surgeries
Stood up to Tim bloody Martin.

We should have seen this coming, they knew about China, they should have prepared as early as the end of January, not ignored it. Testing for everyone should have been available. They should have done what they did for TB & other infectious diseases years ago, isolation away from everyone until patients tested negative. This is why all the old fever hospitals should never have been sold off.

I'd have closed the whole of the uk off from the rest of the world . We are islands. That should make it pretty easy. No going off or back into the island. If freight still needed to come and go then allot an area that's only to by used by freight personal to rest and refresh before flying /sailing away again . Leave freight for a cool off period before introducing into the rest of the country.

Mainland travel restricted to what's absolutely necessary.
Free Wi-fi for all do they can work from home. Those in absolutely necessary face to face jobs given ppe .

I totally agree with Graphista..except for the temporaty basic income.

I would have immediately thought about the age group that were most at risk- over 70s

Then I would have thought where are there lots of over 70s- care homes

Then I would have immediately redeployed Nursing workforce into care homes 1 to help staff them so agency staff wouldn't be moving from one care home to the next 2 to help improve infection control techniques.

Then I would have said to hospital managers and senior staff do not under any circumstances discharge anyone with symptoms back into nursing homes. I would have used the empty nightingale hospitals for this. This would have saved thousands of lives.

@NailsNeedDoing

I’d have built the nightingale hospitals sooner used them for every single Covid patient that needed care, so there would have been no patients with it discharged to hospices and care homes, and actual hospitals would have carried on normally as much as possible.

Yes, we discussed this at the time, in China they had quarantine centres, these would have really helped limit transmission.

But we had no staff. Everything had been cut back so far.

I am pretty sure I wouldn't have given track and trace to inexperienced private sector, I would have expanded the experience public sector. That decision was ideological by the government.
.

With hindsight, locked down on March 1. Probably would have saved 10,000+ lives.

Not sent infected elderly people from hospitals into care homes. Passed laws to require care home workers to self isolate.

I would she said anyone in receipt of old age pension - ie the most at risk category are the ones to lockdown. Care homes locked down and hospitals. Anyone else of working age medically confirmed as vulnerable/shielded also and they would get some form of financial aid. (Not the pensioners though) and the rest of us carried on working 🤷‍♀️

And after seeing how fucking stupid people were going to Bournemouth beach on those hot sunny days with no social distancing at all, I WOULD HAVE CLOSED THE BEACHES AGAIN.

I am interested why, in hindsight, you would have done this when it did not correlate to an increase in cases? So we have the data to show no increase yet you would close them?

What do the people who say they would have had a 'real' lockdown or a 'stricter' lockdown mean? That they would have policed what we had more vigorously or that they would have restricted people's movement more (presumably by not allowing people out for exercise or work?)

I would have begun sourcing PPE and ventilators (even though we later found out they weren't needed) in January - as I did for my personal supplies.

I would have postponed Brexit and fully participated in any EU shared efforts re PPE, ventilators, vaccines.

I would have set up Nightingale care homes, rather than Nightingale hospitals, to clear beds in hospitals. They would have been possible to actually staff and prevented the huge loss of life in care homes, possibly even meaning that people could have still visited their relatives.

I would have invested in the Apple and Google tracing app, rather than trying to invent my own form scratch.

I would have worked harder on making tracing work longer, and would have made it available to more people earlier. This would have been possible, because I would have been earlier in purchasing tests and invested more, sooner, in buying them.

I would have admitted people into hospital with lesser symptoms. I suspect this was avoided in order to keep pictures of overrun hospitals out of the press.

I would have funded local bodies to head the tracing effort, building on the existing expertise in tracking sexual health issues.

I would have ensured that jobs went to the most suitable person, not just my friends.

I would have ensured that messaging was clear and not patronising, passing on all information, not simply three word soundbites.

I would have sacked any advisor who broke the rules and would have personally followed them to the letter.

I would have a real green investment plan set up, rather than returning the economy back to people buying a load of shit that nobody needs which is wrecking our planet.

I'm sure there are many more things.