Things go wrong in other countries, too

[avenueq]

I don't think it's helpful how irate people get about the UK government's failings. Yes there are plenty but this is a whole new situation and there are plenty of other countries making mistakes.
Before you ask - I'm not from the UK, but that means I have insight what happens elsewhere,
So to start -
The Eu has been slow in vaccine acquisition

In Austria, vaccinations could not start yet in some areas as not enogh needles (!) had been ordered

Countries with the most severe lockdown did not necessarily solve the Problem (Spain)

Countries who had supposedly excellent track and trace also had a second wave (Germany)

Anyone got other examples?

@lljkk

Brits are very insecure about their position in league tables, aren't they?

"Sick man of Europe"
"Laughing stock of the world"
etc.

Weird. What is with you people?

1 January-31 March = 39 weeks, but call it 40 weeks to make math easy. 40 x 3000 = 120,000. I don't think anyone credible is saying UK has had 120k deaths from covid so far.

Are they? I think some people are, but generally I couldn't give a monkeys.

Well that looks all wrong: I couldn't give a monkeys the country's position in league tables.

Brits are very insecure about their position in league tables, aren't they?

"Sick man of Europe"
"Laughing stock of the world"

A few MN Brits are. No one I know in RL shares this preoccupation.

PrincessNutsNuts is and she's told us her facts are the right facts.

Your facts aren't so great, though lljk. 1 January -31 March is 13 weeks, not 39.

31 March to 6 January is more like 40 weeks — and as you say, way fewer than the 120,000 PrincessNutsNuts is quoting. I think the death figures for 2019 were something like 951 per 100,000, which at a rough estimate works out at around 650,000 deaths a year. I only have a GCSE in Maths, by the way, and not a good one at that, so feel free to correct my errors.

1 January 2021 - 31 March 2020, sorry, I forgot the year after January, I thought it was self-evident what year I meant....

Its quite sad that so many take delight in europe's problems with rolling out vaccine, a non vaccinated europe will not make our lives much easier.

Who has said they’re delighted? They’re merely pointing out that the EU’s vaccine response has lagged behind ours.

I don't know if you're an accountant or live outside the UK, but we don't normally express dates in reverse, as it were. It would be expressed 31 March 2020 - 1 January 2021.

But I'm getting pedantic.

MN is full of astroturfers (on both sides of the UK political divide) they come for every election, they came for Brexit, they're here for Covid. There's a pretty well-known one on this thread.

Hmmmmm, who could it be?

League tabling...

If the only metric is deaths/capita... but it shouldn't be the only metric.
UK like many countries that have struggled with controling covid have a democratic process, and principles about not infringing liberties -- this is admirable. We didn't resort to a snitcher's charter or have the state simply tell everyone what to do with no representatives to question and scrutinise the measures.

Plenty of people in many countries would love to have systems of accountability and governments that try to be hands off in ordinary people's lives, rather than authoritiarianism and pure corruption (both of which get combined with inevitable incompetence).

1,041 COVID deaths today.
One day.
More than the entire total in
S. Korea (1027)
Australia (909)
Syria (741)
Finland (576)
Norway (452)
Thailand (66)
Vietnam (35)
New Zealand (25)

[quote Guylan]Dr Michael Ryan, WHO, 30 plus years of being a leader in fighting serious pandemics and infectious said go hard, go fast, go early in containing COVID. Countries who did this have had better outcomes. Can only hope should/when another pandemic arises more governments - mainly US and European govts - have learnt from their mistakes by not doing so during this pandemic.

twitter.com/conallmcd/status/1238865202868883461?s=21[/quote]
Yep. And the WHO were saying that in February when our PM hadn't bothered to go to a COBR meeting yet.

I am Spanish, but living in UK for 16 years.
UK is doing really well with rolling the vaccine. I am impressed with that.
In general, the actions imposed to control the pandemic are right.
Charities helping people who has to isolate. More click and collect. Easy access to services and deliveries online. Great! Specially so many kind people getting involved in helping others.
Compliance with rules, really bad in Mumsner! But for what I see in RL is good.

But.... the goverment is lacking on leadership. They seem to stumble upon the answer to the problem. Rather than bother to go and find one. It is not what they do (for example, the new lockdown) is how they do it (last minute, without planning around it- for example key worker school provisions the very next morning). They lose people's trust with this behaviour. And it happens over, and over, and over....
If BJ could find within himself to appear as a strong leader, people would not be so angry and anxious, and it would help with a feeling of togetherness, some comfort in the middle of this.

I am also really impressed with Oxford Astra Zeneca, with the speed of the vaccine, and the so right approach of not- for- profit.

"97% of MN would have closed borders in January or February..."

Quite possibly true - would be interesting to count the posts from that time! May have been slightly fewer. But the interesting thing is that that wasn't what Sage (or indeed the WHO) were advising at the time (or ever?). So is that failure a failure of the government?

"97% of MN would have closed borders in January or February..."

97% of MN were incredulous that Trump said he was going to close flights to China. They said he was trying to start a third world war. (Yes, it really hurts to give him any inch of credit, I don't advise that others try it.)

I think it's just part of the favourite "everyone is wrong except me" theme.

Dr Michael Ryan, WHO, 30 plus years of being a leader in fighting serious pandemics and infectious said go hard, go fast, go early in containing COVID.

And the WHO were saying that in February

The WHO didn't declare a pandemic until 11th March despite being under pressure to do so earlier.

"97% of MN were incredulous that Trump said he was going to close flights to China."
Ha - are you sure that's not an underestimate?! EU was also very critical of that, and WHO didn't recommend it either.

Still, things have moved on it's true - is Sage now recommending closing to passengers, I wonder? (freight drivers are more difficult) (My impression is that Sage/CMO/CSO haven't positively recommended it but I haven't been following closely.) In fact I think Nadhim Zahawi said today that CMO had said testing on arrival at the airport is pointless - that is slightly different from closing borders I know. Although lateral flow testing would at least pick up 50% of current cases wouldn't it? - sounds like better than nothing.

@Shedbuilder

I judge on measurable results here and now. Not in a hypothetical^ future.

Don't know what's hypothetical about the future, but thank you — you've confirmed everything I needed to know.

Unless your hypothetical future includes reanimating completely *preventable covid deaths, then I'll stick with current reality cheers.

*We know they are preventable deaths because so many other countries have been able to prevent them.

And yet we're about to have another 25,000 of them this month.

@PrincessNutNuts very selected choice of countries there
Suprisingly you didn't select italy , spain , france , usa , belgium or anyone like that if you want to ise comparisons post the link to the whole data,

@PrincessNutNuts the uk has high death rates per capita but they are not the highest and not all report exactly the same and things like age of population are not taken onto account country to country.

[quote donewithitalltodayandxmas]@PrincessNutNuts very selected choice of countries there
Suprisingly you didn't select italy , spain , france , usa , belgium or anyone like that if you want to ise comparisons post the link to the whole data, [/quote]
Here's the whole data:

You'll see there are 8 countries with worse per capita death tolls than the U.K. Some of which you mentioned

And 186 who are handling covid better than we are. Some of which you mentioned.

www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/

@jasjas1973 no one has taken delight over europes roll out on vaccine but they are pointing out where so far the uk has been more successful and how other countries have their challenges also.
Plenty do seem to take delight though in only saying how bad the uk has done and how we have the highest death rate in europe ( which currently isn't even true )
Its not a competition

@PrincessNutNuts i know where to find the data already thanks
But not all are like for like are they .
There are many unknowns still and not all countries are reporting exactly the same

[quote donewithitalltodayandxmas]@PrincessNutNuts the uk has high death rates per capita but they are not the highest and not all report exactly the same and things like age of population are not taken onto account country to country.

[/quote]
We have one of the highest rates of covid deaths per capita in the world however it is measured or analysed.

[quote donewithitalltodayandxmas]@PrincessNutNuts i know where to find the data already thanks
But not all are like for like are they .
There are many unknowns still and not all countries are reporting exactly the same[/quote]
Don't ask me to post the link to the whole data then.

Dutch people are angry with how poorly their government has handled things, especially the vaccine.
Coronavirus: Dutch shocked to be EU vaccination stragglers
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55549656