Is government creating chaos on purpose?

[pontypridd]

So many mixed messages.

So much incompetence.

I don't think there is a grand conspiracy. Most involved are just simply not clever enough to do such nor keep it quiet if they tried. What I do think, however, is that various individuals and groups are manipulating the situation greatly. Many inside national and local government, and indeed private business ànd public bodies such as the NHS, are using this virus to further their own agendas or grab powers and gain influence that goes beyond what one should expect in a free society.

It is, in my view, all combining to make a right mess. A epically gigantic mess that is ruining people lives in many ways. The sheer number of lives being put at risk of people who don't have Covid but have other medical needs they can't get help for, is astounding and deeply terrifying.

Only Covid 19 exists now. All aspects of life have to pander to it, or should I say, the fear of it. For those who have been paying attention, one would think it has removed the need to treat all other disease or the need to pay your bills and put food on the table. Nothing is more important that stopping the virus spreading, not even staying alive. Remember you MUST NOT leave your house when self isolating. There is nothing mentioned in the guidelines about heart attacks, stroke, fire etc. and if you have truly nobody to help, you supposed to allow yourself to starve to death or go without essential medicine for the "GREATER GOOD".

It's a disorganised mess.

@NastyBlouse

I have come to the conclusion that trying to enact political measures to deal with something like an infectious disease is only ever going to be minimally successful -- it's like trying to bottle fog.

Transmission is more complex than 'be near someone and you'll catch it' -- of course this can be a factor, but there are many others, some of which we understand and some of which we don't.

Furthermore, human nature is such that many people will ignore or break the rules, unless you have something akin to an authoritarian police state. (And even then...)

I also think a lot of people have an unrealistic expectation of how much safety they are owed by the government. It's not government's job to make our lives 100% safe. If it was, it would be illegal to drive a car, or be over a certain weight, or get pregnant, or go for a swim, or have an operation, or basically do anything that is part of being alive.

At one level and this is an open question to which I don't have an answer how much safety do we expect from government, and how much is down to decision-making, risk assessment and personal responsibility?

I'm no fan of this government, but I think they are trying sometimes successfully, sometimes not to strike a balance between legislating and giving out information that allows people to protect themselves up to a reasonable point, and allowing the functions of society to continue. This is always going to be a slightly wobbly tightrope, because you're pitting something blunt human reasoning and decision-making etc against an organism which is built to be highly efficient at doing what it is doing.

Whilst this is a good post and I agree with a lot of it, it doesn't negate the fact that this government has done a piss poor job of even attempting to do a good job. This is not their fault exactly because their political ethos is so unsuitable for dealing with a public health crisis that it would be funny if not so tragic. And most people in this country seem to agree with that ethos anyway or they would not have such a majority in parliament.

This government's main tools for dealing with anything (denigrating and defunding public services and privatising them wherever possible) are not useful in a pandemic situation. Hence they are tying themselves in knots trying to work out what they should do and doing a pretty incompetent job .

A strong public sector working hand in hand with an appropriately regulated public sector is what we need (see Germany). Both need to respect and work with each other at a local level and central government needs to make a few rules that are enforceable and then and mostly get out of the way. Their job is to facilitate the private and public sector to work together under an umbrella of broad regulations and guidance not to centralise everything.

Because this government, on principle, does not trust its public sector, it cannot bring itself to do this. Instead it does that irritating thing that crap managers do of micromanaging and underpaying their employees (ie the public sector) along with overpaying and giving too much power, money and leeway to their 'consultants' (aka the private sector). The problem is the 'consultants' have absolutely no idea of the complexities involved in actually doing the job. The actual employees who might know what to do meanwhile are too exhausted and lacking resources from years of under investment to do their job properly and they certainly don't trust the 'consultants' either.

All the while the crap manager continues to issue instructions and 'memos' outlining completely impractical and unworkable solutions in excruciating and confusing detail.

Personally I think the media causes most of the confusion. If you go straight to NHS or Government sites, the messages are very clear. Yes, they change, but then everyone on the planet has had to do that when new information, best practice becomes apparent. The media meanwhile huff and puff, change and challenge message with different scientists lining up to contradict and seed doubt. Then you have all the FB and Twitter knobs with their political rhetoric or conspiracy theories.

Unfortunately, too much information is a modern curse, and as much a hindrance as a help.

Could the government have been clearer, more concise and less waffly, yes, should they have called out wrongdoers (DC), yes, none of this has helped. Are they doing it on purpose, of course not.

The problem is the 'consultants' have absolutely no idea of the complexities involved in actually doing the job

DH would disagree with that statement! They actually often have a better idea, more experience, and far better insight.

[quote CaraDuneRedux]@NastyBlouse

To an extent, it's like bottling fog - but that doesn't explain the massive differences between different countries. I've screen grabbed a couple of shots (total cumulative deaths per million, weekly average new cases) for CDC data from here:
91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?fbclid=IwAR30qEvzq11I78qY5WyPOXUOtjUmZdzQL3d-k9gtDLrG6SMyl5EwD0lWmmU (US CDC data drawn from official government sources across the world).

The reason I've highlighted Germany and the UK is that they're similar politically (both liberal democracies, not authoritarian), culturally (both Western Europe), both relatively wealthy countries, both with similar large cities and similar very interconnected international transport hubs.

The UK is doing much, much worse than Germany. First wave - reached a similar peak in terms of number of new cases per day, but Germany brought the peak down much, much quicker. Second wave - clearly happening in the UK, isn't happening in Germany. Cumulative deaths - 6 times worse in the UK than Germany.

So clearly even within a liberal democracy rather than an authoritarian regime, it is possible to have very different outcomes. So it's a perfectly reasonable question to pose: What are our politicians doing wrong?

(As for the consipiracy theory nuts - I offer you this:
www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/07/coronavirus-deadlier-than-many-believed-infection-fatality-rate-cvd/

Seasonal flu - case fatality rate of between 1 and 10 per 100,000 of population.

Covid - case fatality rate of between 500 and 1000 per 100,000 of population.

Do consider taking the tin-foil hat off your head and re-purpose it as a face mask instead - it'll probably do you more good that way.)[/quote]
Germany really doesn’t have an equivalent to somewhere like London with its large and in places very dense population and Heathrow airport.

Berlin has the biggest population in Germany but is far smaller than London. It’s airports are nowhere near as busy as Heathrow. Frankfurt is Germany’s busiest airport but it’s nowhere near as populated an area as Greater London.

I do think that it makes for a far more compliant population when our nerves are so jangled by this incompetence that many people will be relieved to go home and stay put when they are told to do so. But I think that's an unintended consequence rather than planned gaslighting.

Is the population more compliant? When it's afraid, confused, with no trust in its leaders and nothing left to lose? Surely its easier to control a happy, healthy, well fed, economically stable population who have no reason to kick off? Bread and circuses.

People who honestly believe this is some mass conspiracy seriously underestimate the ineptitude of our government.

@CaraDuneRedux @bumblingbovine49 Excellent posts both

I feel I should reiterate in clearer terms that I neither like this government nor approve of its strategy! I think what I was inelegantly fumbling towards was a slight disconnect in the expectations of many people, in addition to the strategy from government being poor. Total and unequivocal 'safety' from an infectious disease is unrealistic fantasy; of course that's not to say that we shouldn't take some measures to mitigate the effects of it.

I do think there's an interesting set of questions around how far we expect government to protect us vs how much we protect ourselves. (In some ways, the two should complement each other, of course -- behaviour follows helpful information etc.)

I was talking to a mate of mine in Germany. He's not a scientist or an expert in anything especially, so it's just a 'man on the Strasse' opinion, but he did say that culturally Germany has differences to the UK which might have helped the country deal with coronavirus better. (He's British and has lived in Germany for about 5 years.)

From talking to him I think and wandering into this too much will derail the thread, I fear that life in Germany carries an element of 'good citizenship', which has come in part from the country maturely and intelligently facing up to the events of the early and middle decades of the 20th century, in contrast to the air of exceptionalism (especially English exceptionalism) that seems to be prevalent in the UK. Germany also has lots of hospitals, high spending on healthcare (none of the main political parties in Germany stand on a platform of reducing healthcare spending), and more ICU beds than the UK. It has significantly lower obesity levels than the UK. It got its head around testing and tracing early on, and people in long-term care facilities were better shielded. This last bit has, I think, been one of the crucial elements of their response which has driven such a difference in numbers and, especially, deaths.

Surely its easier to control a happy, healthy, well fed, economically stable population who have no reason to kick off?

That's not an option available to us in the middle of a pandemic on the cusp of a deep recession.

I certainly think Germany has many admirable attitudes to public health and civic responsibility. They are a grown-up country on the whole.

But they didn’t have the high-risk situation of people pouring into the third-largest airport in the world and busiest In Europe , set next to the largest and most densely populated city/adjacent area in Europe. We should have shut down the airports earlier.

Why on earth would they ? And it’s not a u turn if they warn you that if things change so will their actions .

And it’s not just our government , things have changed in other countries as well as has the advice of the WHO . And the scientists.

@Baaaahhhhh

Exactly . The main problem is that the government over estimated the intelligence of a proportion of the population. Plus there are a thousand variations of every family situation and they had to try and cover all bases . Every one on social media is suddenly an expert in politics, economics and pandemics all rolled into one .

But funnily enough have no alternative answers .

No. I’ve had the misfortune to work as a civil servant for a central government department before (pre-COVID) and trust me they’ve always been this astoundingly fucking incompetent. It’s just never mattered as much before.

@Unsure33 Do you understand what behavioural scientists do? By your own words, you've confirmed that the government and their advisers are incompetent.

it’s not a u turn if they warn you that if things change so will their actions

When a u turn happens overnight, or even after a few hours, that is nothing to do with the behaviour of the public. It's evidence that the initial decision was a shit one.

I don't think they are creating chaos on purpose but they are certainly using the chaos to distract and to sew division in society. All the time we are blaming each other, blaming young people, old people, blaming people who went to the beach, blame the teachers, blame the police etc we are not looking at them. All the time the media is whipped up to a frenzy by whatever outrage of the day is we are not noticing that another multi million contract has been awarded to one of their wealthy donors. Johnson is a mediocre journalist that never done a days work in his life. His cabinet are equally unqualified and are appointed solely on their unquestioning support for Brexit. They govern by gaslighting and manipulation.

I certainly think Germany has many admirable attitudes to public health and civic responsibility.

Indeed.
April - "Germans snitch on neighbours flouting virus rules, in echo of the Stasi past."

"BERLIN (Reuters) - Law-abiding Germans are zealously helping police crack down on people flouting new social distancing rules aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus by reporting on strangers, neighbours and friends." ...

"Forces around Germany are in a similar situation. Munich police took up to 150 calls every day last week [March] from citizens reporting alleged breaches of corona rules, Spiegel Online said."

"The Mitteldeutsche Zeitung reported that authorities in Magdeburg had asked citizens not to overburden the police, quoting an official as saying “people shouldn’t make a report every time they see three people sitting on a park bench.”

www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany-denunciati-idUSKBN21K2PB

Part of the problem is, people with money don't actually need the economy to do well. If you can afford to play the markets, you can make just as much money on businesses going bust as you can on them thriving. That's why our monetary system is so broken.

@Nellodee

Also, people with money aren’t as concerned for their children’s futures

What is certain is that saving people's lives, even saving the economy, is not a high priority for the government. The priorities are funnelling money from the public purse to their cronies and donors as quickly as possible, grabbing more power for themselves, keeping the ideological loons happy.
Once you give a PPE contract to a confectionary company owned by a friend, and pretend that "we didn't get the email" from the EU about sourcing ventilators together, it's obvious that saving lives is barely on your agenda. Covid is, more than anything else, an opportunity.

@goldrabbit22

YABU

It's just to flatten the curve.
It's just 6 feet.
It's just a mask.
It's just non-essential businesses.
It's just 3 weeks.
It's just to keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed.
It's just restaurants and pubs.
It's just until the numbers of cases are reduced.
It's just a few months.
It's just a little inflation.
It's just Easter.
It's just until we get a vaccine.
It's just to let others know you're safe to be around.
It's just a blood test.
It's just a few job losses.
It's just a little microchip.
It's just an app for your phone.
It's just so you can leave your home.
It's just Christmas.
It's just so you can travel.
It's just so you can vote.
It's just groups larger than 6.
It's just so you can enter a grocery store.
It's just after 10pm.
It's just another 6 months.

It's just our liberty, being taken away, piece by piece.

If you think these "lockdowns" and restrictions are just about a virus, you just haven't been paying attention.

This.

I'm honestly gobsmacked by how many people have just blithely accepted the current strategy.

@lifesalongsong

Why would they do that and how would they know which measures wouldn't work?

Your suggestion assumes a deliberate strategy to let tens of thousands of citizens die, do you serioulsy think any UK government would do that?

Given the fact that this virus does not kill indiscriminately (median age of a Covid death is 71) I wouldn't put it past them tbh.

It would neatly resolve the impending crisis of paying for the care of the elderly.

I’m more gobsmacked by anyone who could look at the current government and its performance so far and think “now there’s a ruthlessly efficient band of operators, capable of carefully planning and carrying out a long-term strategy without ever once letting their evil microchip plans slip” rather than “what a fuck-up”.

IMO its incompetance, not conspiracy. Honestly, conspiracy assumes levels of intelligence I find hard to attribute to our government.