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?

Its very sad as the lack of belief in our Govt is going to bring many more deaths
Act as if you have Covid - seems a simple instruction to me. 'Lack of belief in our Govt' seems a convoluted way of not having to follow the advice and conveniently blaming the Gov

Deaths are certainly rising, from approx. 400/day to 600/day, still a rise, and a sustained number over a longer period of time than in April. However, I do wish the media (and the scientists) didn't use this as a "new high" "record", because it doesn't reflect the actual picture. I always look at "specimin date" for cases, and "date of death" for deaths, never reported

That was the same in April, in fact deaths are probably a lot higher, because in the 1st lockdown, any CV death was added to the total, not just those who died with a CV positive test within 28 days, the current figures don't inc those longer than this or where a positive test hasn't been done but CV is suspected.

tbh i look at the hospitalisations/those in ICU, they give a much more accurate reflection of what is going on and its worse than last spring.

Its very sad as the lack of belief in our Govt is going to bring many more deaths
Isn't it just. Isn't is a massive, terrible, horrific shame that politicians (especially Saint Boris himself, and before him, Tony Blair and many others) have spent years and years lying and getting away with it, and that the sensationalist media has spent years and years CONSTANTLY whipping up a storm about something or other. It's all added up into a massive "crying wolf" effect, so that now that we have a problem that is supposedly "we really mean it this time, it's serious", the government and the media simply don't have any credibility left. I think politicians and the media need to look at themselves here.

And every time the political elite practise "one rule for us, another rule for them", they are weakening their cause even further. I'm surprised no MPs were caught out over Christmas.

The U.K. is the first country in Europe to pass 80,000 covid deaths. (80,868)

And the first European country to top 3 million cases.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-news-london-major-incident-hospitals-cases-deaths/?utmcontent=telegraph&utmmmedium=Social&utmcampaign=Echobox&utmmsource=Twitter#Echobox=1610211033

We are international transport hub , we are very densely populated, very unfit nation with lots of good people

Maybe this might be a reason we doing so poor

The U.K. now has the 8th highest death toll per million in the world.

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

Oops.

Sorry.

7th.

There are loads of comments complaining that the police have gone too far, about the 2 women charged 200 quid for getting together for a walk.
The next comment/ article is ranting because the gov wasn't strict enough.
Hilarious. You can't win.

The U.K. is currently 5th in the world (out of 195) for the most covid deaths in absolute numbers. (And 7th in deaths per million)

COVID makes haters of us all if we're not careful!

I didn't vote Tory and I'm a socialist through and through but I challenge anyone to do their jobs at the moment tbh. It's a nightmare.

We were all too lax over summer and Christmas but with low rates no one would have complied with a continual lockdown anyway. People went abroad etc like it had never happened. Even at Christmas people were in denial. It won't happen to me. It's someone else's problem.

I think we could all have done better tbh!

So true, lovelemoncurd

In Italy over Christmas the rules were different every day, literally one day we could travel anywhere in Italy the next day we couldn't leave our town...we could go see another family in their house once a day, but no bubbles, so in effect you could mix with loads of people. Bars and restaurants are still open until 6pm on the amber zone, so for a good chunk of Christmas, on thee odd days we were not in the red zone, even people in Bologna could go for an aperitivo....insane.

I think everywhere in Europe certainly is a muddle. I also think we’ll be slipping down the deaths per million list slowly over the next 6 months too. Quite a few European countries are over 1000 deaths per million now. Europe has got to be the worst affected continent by far.
It would be interesting to explore why, but that’s for another day

Given our daily infection rates, our death rate has someway to go.

N and S America have done very badly, countries with more populist leaders seem to lead the way (in a wrong way)

"Europe has got to be the worst affected continent by far.
It would be interesting to explore why, but that’s for another day"

I don't know - if we knew why, it might inform the next steps. Mega track and trace like South Korea or is that not reproducible in Europe? Major border controls? What could we usefully copy from Japan?

Is Europe worse affected than the US - I thought they now had fairly similar per capita death rates to the UK? Canada lower, South America very variable.

Surely NA is the worst affected continent due to the massive number of cases in the US and the fact that there have been different state responses?

If you look at worldometer all the countries in top 10 are European I think? US is most cases but about 11th or 12th for deaths per million. Not sure how accurate worldometer is however so I just use it as a rough guide.
It could-be because we are a very inter- connected continent but I would presume other continents have similar people flows. It would make an interesting study.

@PrincessNutNuts

The U.K. is currently 5th in the world (out of 195) for the most covid deaths in absolute numbers. (And 7th in deaths per million)

You're obsessive

@sashagabadon

If you look at worldometer all the countries in top 10 are European I think? US is most cases but about 11th or 12th for deaths per million. Not sure how accurate worldometer is however so I just use it as a rough guide. It could-be because we are a very inter- connected continent but I would presume other continents have similar people flows. It would make an interesting study.

In absolute numbers, UK, Italy, France and Spain are in top 10. Deaths per capita is european dominated, mainly because of very small low population countries which distorts the per capita figures.

This is from Statista.

I think like Patrick Vallance said we’ll have to wait for excess deaths to get a true picture comparing Europe to other places. Russia in worldometer has about 60,000 official deaths but something like 180,000 excess deaths apparently and that might be the case in many other places too.

@Apollo3

But we were in the unique position of being an island with shuttable borders Do you need a map of the UK? I mean, seriously, have you forgotten the land border with the EU?

And more to the point, haven't we all just seen what happens when the borders really do get shut.

According to Johns Hopkins the U.K. is 6th in the world for Case Fatality Ratio and 3rd for deaths per 100,000.

coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

Only 6000 people have died in Austria. I'd take that over being the first to vaccinate. Maybe they've used all their needles on cancer patients while we've just left ours at home.

Rwanda have only had 120 deaths - because of their strict approach with contagious disease but also because of their younger population. In this country we love locking down the young but happy to give older people greater freedom to shop, socialise and mix.

The rest of the world is looking on astonishment I think.

I fully agree OP. I have many friends and colleagues from all across the world including many in Europe.

Firstly we are not the laughing stock. That is a very arrogant way of saying that people think other countries have the time or the energy to focus on the U.K. They don’t!

The Netherlands were the last country in Europe to start vaccinating. Their computer systems weren’t ready. People are FURIOUS and have accused the government of allowing people to die for every day wasted.

The government there has also flipped flapped in and out of lockdown. The teenagers are not following the rules at all - meeting up in groups at each other’s houses. Families mixed at Christmas. There isn’t the same Covid rules or people looking to crucify others for not following them there.

@cherryblosm it is not possible to compare death rates and make a direct correlation to the government. That is a very shallow way of looking at the data. So many things are different.

Population size
Population density
Global hub city eg London
The flu outbreak the previous year
How deaths have been counted eg with or from Covid
Whether care home deaths have been counted
Etc etc

It is a very shallow thing to take one number and lash out.