If you were in charge what would you have done to manage the virus?

[Dickorydockwhatthe]

Everyone is saying what a shit job the government are doing which I sort of agree with but to be honest I wouldn't like to be making the decisions.

Paid attention in 2016 and a totally been prepared.
Shut the borders in March and had a proper, non voluntary, quarantining procedure put in for June onwards.
Wider use of masks enforced.
Proper, working track and trace.
More freely available testing and quicker turn around of results.
Part time online/in person secondary schooling if rates started to rise.

^^ all this costs money but not nearly as much as not doing it is costing.

• prioritise fixing track and trace, starting by sacking useless Dido Harding
• reopen all Nightingales and temporarily take over private hospitals for a period 3 months to increase NHS capacity (I am sure they would complain about it, but health comes before their profits...)
• close borders to all non-British nationals for a month and stop people from travelling in an out and have 14 day quarantines in supervised conditions in hotel near airports/ports. We are an island so let's use that...
• only ask the elderly and the vulnerable to lock down
• introduce universal basic income
• ask Johnson to resign.

A national lockdown in itself achieves nothing.

I would have locked down international travel by start of March. Repatriated people and enforced 14 day quarantine on people returning.

Not mess around and impose face masks earlier.

Be clear with students about mixing and parties. Enable universities to have video/recording equipment so classes and lectures could be streamed live if students chose not to go to uni in person.

Not done eat out to help out.

Got rid of idiot "advisors" (Cummings) who seem to have more influence on the Government than elected ministers/MPs. Not appoint mates/tory peers/wives of tory MPs into key positions. Sack off serco and management consultants - such combinations never deliver (remember the Olympics...)

Would also spend lockdown in start of year properly planning for a second wave rather than hoping it doesn't happen.

Track and trace earlier and using companies that know what they are doing.

Learn from other countries.

Be clear and say Must Not rather than suggesting common sense.

Some good suggestions here.
I would have closed the UK to flights from China in early January to avoid the thousands of Chines travellers who arrived here for Chinese New Year.

Chinese students would have been quarantined on arrival or asked to defer a term.

Closed all borders and flights and quarantined anyone returning at their expense from March.
Worked with the haulage industry on transferring goods to UK vehicles at ports to allow the overseas driver to return.
Supported aviation jobs throughout.

In March, when it was obvious the worse outcomes were being experienced by the exact groups most likely to be vitamin D deficient, I would have set up an urgent national testing framework with clear guidelines on loading doses to bring levels to normal. We didn't need to wait for further research to do this (looking at you Matt Hancock). We already know that vitamin D improves our immune response. Having a nation of people with a less than optimum immune response during a pandemic makes zero sense. (40% estimated to be low or deficient coming out of a British winter). It was the cheapest way we had to reduce pressure on the NHS and bring down hospitalisations and deaths.

I would have sourced more PPE in December as soon as the news out of Wuhan emerged. With most PPE made in China, that wouldn't have been easy.

I would have used track and trace software that had already been proven in Asia.

I would have made it mandatory for 1 year of education online for secondary school children, colleges and universities. So everyone knew where they were from the beginning. Funds to get broadband and laptops out to students who didn't have it and couldn't afford it. Again, this wouldn't have been easy to manage and make fair.

Lots of challenges. It would only be successful with the brightest minds in government.

The cronyism. We needed experts in the field. Not Dido Harding or Kate Bingham (have you seen the breaking news this morning re KB). Not allowing the distorted, and sinister influence of SAGE to have such heavy weighting.

I don't say govt is doing crap job. I would have done a far worse job.

Stop all international travel. Close borders. Keep them closed. No holidays. No non-essential shops open. No takeaways.
The list goes on.
But you don't need to rewrite it. NZ have the playbook and are happy to lend it.

I'd have battened down the hatches from the outset - closed the borders. I'd have made it easy to get a test last Feb/March - if you remember, you could only get a test if you'd come back from a high risk area or were a confirmed contact of another case.

1. I would have taken it seriously from the beginning - would have attended the 5 cobra meetings that Boris didn’t bother going to. I would have locked down at least two weeks before we did (it not earlier) as we could see what was happening elsewhere and that we were going the same way.

2. I would have given notice for brits abroad to return home before imposing a ban on travel from countries with cases and then made people coming into the country isolate whether they had symptoms or not.

3. I would have looked to the countries that had dealt with SARS before as a guide for potential measures.

4. I would have made sure procurement of PPE was a priority instead of companies here having to sell their PPE abroad because we were too slow to get back to them.

5. I would have made mask wearing mandatory a lot earlier and would have led by example on distancing and mask wearing so I didn’t catch covid and end up leaving the work to a different minister each day.

6. I would have had a zero tolerance on staff or MPs breaking the covid rules - Cummings would have been sacked.

7. I would have had NHS England involved in the track and tracing and not given the contract to incompetent pals of mine.

8. I would have given funding to restaurants and pubs to have powerful air ventilation systems installed that purify the air (these can reduce transmission very effectively) instead of funding eat out to help out. I would also have had these installed in schools.

9. When schools opened I’d have had a blended model for at least a month or so to be able to tell what impact opening everything else up was having first. if all was well then I would have opened up schools fully but I’d be prepared to go back to a blended route for those pupils old enough not to need ‘childcare’

10. Mandatory testing for NHS and care workers on a weekly basis at least. I also would not have allowed people testing positive for covid back into care homes.

Oh and I would have listened to SAGE and not dismissed them so easily. I think that a tougher lock down earlier on and effective tracing and mandatory testing would have stamped it out. Short and painful but for long term gain rather than this dithering incompetent and prolonged process that causes more pain overall.

Initially I would have Followed advice and learning from our own pandemic planning exercises.

Then Looked to countries who have successfully managed virus threats before (Asian counties) and learnt from them.

Implemented an effective track & trace system and made it compulsory- if you want to go into a shop/pub/whatever you must provide proof of id and contact details.

That my 5cents worth after a few minutes though let in bed on Sunday morning. I'm sure there is room for improvement given more facts and knowledge

I strongly believe we haven't so much got a viral epidemic, we've primarily got a vitamin D epidemic, and the virus is exploiting the "cracks" in the health of the population. Something like 96% of critical and severe cases of covid are either vitamin D deficient or insufficient. See attached graph. We need to get blood levels up to over 75 nmol/l (ideal range is 100 - 150).

On that basis I would fortify foodstuffs with vitamin D (bread and milk). Report in today's Observer:

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/31/add-vitamin-d-bread-milk-help-fight-covid-urge-scientists-deficiency-supplements

I would give everyone going for a flu vaccination an additional shot of vitamin D while in the surgery. Report in Australian medical journal here:

ama.com.au/media/vitamin-d-deficiency-fixed-shot

Ideally I'd give out vit D3 tablets to the whole population. The raw materials cost £5 per person for a 25 year supply (obviously manufacture and distribution would bump it up a bit... but still). Tiny, tiny, trivial amounts compared to the humungous costs of lockdown, healthcare costs, costs of government borrowing that will take decades to pay back, impact on the wider economy, not to mention the human suffering and bereavement impacts. It would also massively reduce other diseases associated with low vitamin D levels, such as T2 diabetes, hypertension, some cancers, some forms of depression. Many of these are co-morbidities associated with covid. Surprisingly sensible voice for Tory quarters here:

www.conservativehome.com/platform/2020/10/david-davis-is-there-a-plan-b-on-covid-that-will-work-i-believe-that-there-is-namely-making-much-more-use-of-vitamin-d.html

Study from Córdoba hospital with patients admitted with covid:

50 went into the treatment group (best available treatment PLUS the acitve/fast acting form of vitamin D). Of those only one (2%) was admitted to ICU, none died, all went home without complications.

26 went into the control group (best available treatment, but no vitamin D). Half of them required admission to ICU and two died. See graph 2

Although this was a smallish study, it was a randomised double blind control study, the gold standard in medical research.

Summary of evidence from vitamin D researcher:

www.drdavidgrimes.com/2020/10/covid-19-and-vitamin-d-summary-of.html

@MadameBlobby

I was not even a particular Covid worrier but even I asked myself back in Feb:

People coming back from Italy with symptoms and not having to quarantine. Wtf?

6 nations matches going ahead

People coming from china having to quarantine but not Italy?!

My aunt went to Italy in Feb and returned with Covid symptoms. She sought advice on whether to isolate and was told no?! She lives in an area which has had a massive number of cases for months!

Border restrictions in February. We sort of half ended up there anyway later on in the year. Use some of the empty hotels that resulted in this as self-isolation centres for people returning to the country.

Locked down a week earlier in March.

Not undermining their own messaging. It culminated with Cummings going to Durham, but it started before that. Enforce penalties for breaking the law, but also be clear about the spirit of the law as well as the letter of it.

Slightly linked to that not used the term covid secure, encouraged eat out to help out or get back to work.

Proper financial support for people needing to self-isolate. People shouldn’t be discouraged from doing the right thing because it means they might lose their jobs or be unable to put food on the table.

Introduced support bubbles earlier. Start coming out of lockdown by introducing the idea of extended bubbles I.e. your household can form a bubble with 1 other household regardless of the number of people.

Used existing, experienced labs to run testing rather than setting them up from scratch. Don’t discourage hospitals who are doing father own testing, sometimes with wider criteria. Similarly for tracing. Local PHE teams already existed and were doing a good job.

Use the time during the initial lock down to get test and trace functioning properly. Don’t end up in a situation where you are having to discourage people from getting tested due to capacity.

Encourage people with cold/flu like symptoms to stay at home and not go to school or work. Reducing the spread of other viruses would have eventually eased the pressure on testing.

Don’t make the same mistake in October that you made in March.

I bought face coverings on 25th January, which is when I read about the lockdown in Wuhan. If I, a member of the public with very little healthcare experience, could grasp his serious it was for an entire Chinese city to shut down it's economy, what on hell's name was the government doing? They left it far too late and did the share root of fuck all until it was much too late. Then they undid what had been achieved in lockdown with illogical, unsafe reopening of schools when they could have done so much more safely by funding extra capacity for social distancing and supporting parents financially / protecting working parents' employment rights, instead of leaving them reliant on schools and vulnerable grandparents for childcare.

That's the trouble with the UK. The outrage from parts of the general public and politicians to taking any measures when cases and numbers were low. The cries of it's all blown out of proportion, killing the economy, we have no problem here etc etc meant we had to get to crisis point. When action was eventually taken it was harder and longer to get the rates back down again. If we had learnt from this the first time we could have lived with it at low levels; no eat out to help out, no great summer getaway, more thought into schools opening in September safely. That would include masks in secondary for all from day 1 . A 2 week total system for secondaries. Screens for all classroom desks. Temporary outdoor structures.

Back in March masks mandatory in all indoor settings.

Restaurants and bars and all shops could stay open with organised distancing.

Kept all parks open.

I would have ensured the contact, test and trace was working efficiently before allowing schools to return.

I would have understood the seriousness of the virus back in February and not made jokes about it or put myself on tv showing me shaking hands with covid patients. I would not have kept referring to it as a mild illness and nothing to worry about. Those early briefings did so much damage giving people more reason to believe the economy was being trashed for nothing.

God l wish Mumsnetters were in charge...

Well we all now have the benefit of hindsight.
Test and trace can never work when the numbers are so high and is hopeless when people ignore instructions to isolate / quarantine themselves.
Quarantine works if done properly so, none of this reliance on public spirit, if you are infected you go to a place of quarantine. Sequester hotels and put infected people in there with food and medical support where needed.

Once numbers are under control test and trace backwards to find sources of infection not just contacts after infection.

Closed borders to all but essential travel in Feb. Return home allowed throughout, but with 2 weeks quarantine at a specific quarantine site and a negative test. Same for essential travel - allowed but with quarantine.

Lockdown for 4 weeks from early March if cases had spread anyway. The sooner and harder you lock down, the quicker it's over and schools can reopen.

Proper test and trace.

A national campaign to promote mask wearing. Masks required for all public, indoor spaces, to minimise the need to shut businesses.

Locked down in tandem with Ireland (and firmly squashed the DUP yapping), closed borders, tested en masse and got a drive on for fabric masks among the public - maybe we didn't know if they help against Covid, but we did know they help for basically everything else and it would have normalised ahead of cold and flu season.

And before any of that, shut down the Six Nations, Cheltenham etc, quarantined anyone entering from Italy at half term (in airport hotels, none of this trusting to better natures) and we'd actually have been in a position comparable to NZ by now.

@Dragongirl10

God l wish Mumsnetters were in charge...

Some of them.

Not the "Let it rip and let vast numbers of our children's grandparents/bus drivers/ hospital porters/shop workers and bar staff get covid so I don't have to change anything in my life" types.

Or the "I demand my right to light up my house like a Christmas tree. Nobody dies of Luftwaffe. It's a scam to control you" sorts during the.Blitz.

Let's not put them in charge.

I know it's not universally popular but I said early on, shield the most vulnerable so everyone else could carry on.

Really hard for those who need to shield but the alternative is really hard for everyone and by destroying the economy we run the risk of services that can't cope with the most vulnerable's needs.

However, as they did go down the lockdown route and are now doing it again, I think the absolute shambles that was the way the Cummings affair was handled has had a huge impact.

All they needed to do was get him to say 'I'm sorry, I made a poor decision" and it would have swiftly moved on. As it was, it was the turning point for having people comply, what ever restrictions they try to put in place now.

“...military banging on doors asking for ID.”

Thankfully Mumsnet isn’t in charge, we’d have martial law!

If you just let the virus spread you don't get to carry on as normal for long. It keeps building for quite a while, and once schools and hospitals collapse normal life grinds to a halt somewhat.

Hospitals and schools are expected to start to collapse first. (December and January respectively) Then everything else suffers from all the chaos of millions of people either being off sick or off work looking after kids off school, or ill parents or partners etc there's no room for in hospitals. People not going to work means vital stuff doesn't get done, and then you get power supply problems, food supply problems water supply problems...

And "shielding the vulnerable" from March 23rd to August 1st didn't seem to stop people dying did it?