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?

@ATieLikeRichardGere

I think the idea that the UK is a laughing stock is interesting as I doubt that people in other countries really are interested in what’s happening in the UK. My relatives abroad ask when they phone, as they don’t know. It’s our exaggerated sense of self importance that makes us think people in other countries are even paying attention, when they’ve no doubt got more relevant issues taking up more space in their minds!

Exactly this. If they are laughing it's because they are comparing and being judgemental and won't be happy people. Other countries are probably far too concerned with their own hang ups.

@Dongdingdong - that's not my experience. Here's one: www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/12/uk-takes-a-pasting-from-worlds-press-over-coronavirus

My issue isn't the mistake made with good intentions. It's the inability to acknowledge they made mistakes and explain the science of why they took them in the first place.

"We threw our arms around care homes"
"Following the science"
"Schools are safe"

Care homes - at the time nothing was known about asymptomatic cases and spread and spread 48 hours before symptoms. The removed all the red tape for funding to clear hospitals of backlogs of patients who should be in care. It was a fatal mistake. But a mistake.
And considering 84% of care homes are private and charge inflated fees for their patients all the blaming gov for no PPE for misdirected.

Schools - I think Boris is trying to reassure parents their children at at risk from attending. Eg they may catch it but risk to them is extremely low. But he doesn't have c,ear messaging, just repeats these slogans, and the message gets lost. He needs to recognise as he finally did Monday that that isn't enough. Staff are at risk and them transmitting it to people at risk is high.

"Following the science" again he isn't clear about what the science is he is following. Monday he explained about the transmission from schools and it changes the whole message.

It they moved away from the rhetoric and all the bluster "world beating" etc and moved with the people I think they'd get less backlash.

No government has got this right. Who will get a novel virus that's not usually seen in west fully correct?

Don't get me wrong, I think this government have handled it really badly. But I think it's more their egos and bluster as opposed to the mistakes.

As a well traveled Brit with friends and family throughout our global village - I propose that the UK is far from a laughing stock and is well respected in numerous specialist sectors for which we are actually world class. Believe it or not despite our climate the UK is far from the worse place on Earth. I previously enjoyed and learnt much from professional and business postings throughout the principal business centres of North America, Far East, Australasia and Gulf states. The UK is treated as a little traditional and well established but not ever laughed at nor ridiculed by others. Resentment and admiration yes but laughed at like everyone takes for granted the dysfunctional banana republic of Trump mafia - no!

Only seemingly we Brits (a few not all) like to laugh at ourselves as a nation and complain that it is someone else's fault. It's never our own fault is it? It’s never us unmasked (initially disputing the science) and ignoring social distancing rules in large crowds indoors etc that may have lead to rapid spread and mutation. Yes there is obvious incompetence and dangerous mismanagement at the top of the political establishment. Examples include the perpetual too little too late and u turns. And over promising a world beating test, track, trace and isolate system and mates and direct family members of the corrupt political elite on the take and handed out free cash contracts when the economy needs it most.

We even in the middle of the ongoing global pandemic war also managed to amazingly Brextania to join more global trading partners new and old.

We are not the very best but as Boris says if we are allowed to use some common sense (even though it is sometimes lacking at the top table) we can have some freedom but must ensure we do our mutual civic duty to moderate our behaviour and protect each other and all. It is us that cause the super spreading! We are a diverse multi cultural society and those sections of the community that have disproportionately fell to Covid is because of their relative risk of exposure to Covid through their career and lifestyle choices eg front line customer facing roles and close multi generational limited personal physical space living and religious mass gatherings etc etc. Mini cab drivers etc can hardly work at home.

As an aside but connected - if you YouTube view American Dr Duc C Vuong and compare it with British Dr John Campbell you will see the difference! This is not by any means scientific but their differing presentation styles possibly reflect the intellectual capabilities of their respective audiences. Americans talk to each other as if they are uneducated children while the Brits tend to message in more established nuanced sophistication in comparison? The same comparisons are found in mainstream news media and television talk shows etc. Thank goodness the Americans I know are highly educated and knowledgeable professionals but why have so many fellow Americans with preexisting poor health been left behind stateside and nearly again elected a clown? On that note Britainia still can hold its own - just but we have higher expectations.

[quote luckylavender]@Dongdingdong - that's not my experience. Here's one: www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/12/uk-takes-a-pasting-from-worlds-press-over-coronavirus[/quote]
The Guardian, back in May 2020. Sorry I'd like a source rather more reliable than an extremely left wing news source from over 8 months ago. Honestly I am not just trying to diss the source to avoid having to address the issues but I do find The Guardian notoriously untrustworthy and unbalanced with regards to political reporting. So much has happened since then. I bet if I had a vested interest in doing so and time to spare I could pull together an article combined of various opinion pieces criticising how any country has managed Covid.

Just to remind everyone who's relying on the statistics that different countries are measuring different things over different time-frames and so the country-by-country figures may be misleading. You can die with Covid or you can die of Covid, for example: they are two different things and that can make a difference. Countries that do a lot of testing find and report more cases than countries that don't.

I had a Christmas letter from former neighbours of ours. They're Australian but they were in Spain when Covid struck and were locked down hard, with the streets patrolled by soldiers with guns. They hated every minute of it and when they escaped to the UK they told me how fascist Spain still was and how they'd never go back and what a haven of sanity and freedom we seemed. Now from the safety of Perth they're slagging the UK off for failing to crack down as tightly as the Western Australia government did (with the result that WA is carrying on completely untouched by Covid.) Talk about wanting it all ways, eh?

I think that Brexit has focussed the world's attention on us, because we appear to have been monumentally stupid and our apparent performance during Covid has cemented that impression. I think down the line things may look different. You can never see what's going on in the midst of chaos. It's only later, when things die down, that you see the pattern — and sometimes it's not what you thought it was.

"When you get to a certain numbers of cases, the battle is lost, you just cannot keep up with the contacts."

I wonder if we'll eventually conclude that the mid March statement by one of the CMOs - that once the virus has spread, testing is not an appropriate intervention - was, in fact, correct? It will be interesting to see! I think Sage recently said track and trace was not having much impact.

Yes, the app doesn't seem to be a bit part of the picture now. And then the bike repair vouchers....what happened to them?!

Well the Guardian didn't make up the reporting. Try this damning indictment:

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/17/world/europe/britain-covid-contracts.html

What @HmmSureJan said.

As for what’s happening now (as opposed to last May), this was an interesting read in the FT yesterday:

EU countries in blame game over sluggish vaccine rollout

www.ft.com/content/f2646ac5-aedd-4542-a211-9be83c465c6e

Try this damning indictment:

Because the US response has been so much better than ours?

Eek, sorry, I meant 'mass'testing and trace' - obviously testing of the ill, and sample surveillance testing weren't meant to be included in that.

[quote luckylavender]Well the Guardian didn't make up the reporting. Try this damning indictment:

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/17/world/europe/britain-covid-contracts.html[/quote]
From the NY Times, who's country's response to the pandemic has been nothing short of disastrous, whose president is no more than a comedic figure of fun with a psychopathic lack of care of his people.

I detect a bit of "don't look here, look there!"

@starfro my part of Canada has definitely used track and trace effectively. We are the most densely populated province, with the oldest average age and as of yesterday have 27 cases in the entire province.

It is not the only thing that has been used though - we have also closed our borders to anyone not willing to quarantine for 14 days alone or as a whole household, as well as had a clear and concise message throughout the last 10 months. Our children and teachers wear masks in school and on school busses and except for extending the Christmas holiday by 1 week in January they have missed no school.

The UK, and England especially, have completely bungled the last 10 months with indecisiveness and u-turns

To be fair at least America has replaced their inept leader.

What I have noticed here in Germany is that news stories from the UK press about UK cockups are picked up on in Germany and reported as they are. It's the same the other way round - the Guardian and other news sources have reported on German problems. So it's not like we ignore each others' problems entirely - for news sources, it's an easy way to come up with an interesting story if you simply look at other countries' headlines then report what they are saying. It's not just so people here can crow - interesting positive stories are reported too, such as Major Tom, the guy who raised so much money, or the clapping for the NHS. There have also been stories here comparing the UK's introduction of vaccines positively, as it's been a bit of a shambles so far in Germany.

I think it's great that people complain about their own country. Who else is going to complain about it? How would change happen, if it wasn't for people complaining?

But yes as response to poster above in some ways we really are top of the game.

But by the time they went on about our genomics which really is world class people had switched off form it. Also about our scientists and the vaccine. It was a huge achievement to get it approved. We really do have some of the best scientist in the world.

But having seen the best track and trace (that's crap) etc people stop believing.

It's like the boy who cried wolf.

I think the U.K. is generally getting great press regarding our vaccine procurement and roll out which makes a pleasant change
Eu countries looking on with envy was one such headline in the ft the other day. I do think the EU roll out has quite a few problems which We have fortunately escaped by doing our own thing.
Plus a few countries had disparaging articles regarding our Decision to extend the gap between doses , guess what those same countries (US and Ireland in particular) are now “exploring “ doing this very thing themselves.

that's not my experience. Here's one:

Published Tuesday 12th May 2020?

Oh the Guardian was dreadful back in April and May. It is probably still dreadful now but I never look at it anymore or care what it’s columnists have to say about anything. It’s liberating

It's not just so people here can crow - interesting positive stories are reported too, such as Major Tom, the guy who raised so much money, or the clapping for the NHS. There have also been stories here comparing the UK's introduction of vaccines positively, as it's been a bit of a shambles so far in Germany.

This is nice to hear. I agree with you too that it is essential that we hold our government and country to account. It's the utterances of shame and insistence that we are doing worse than anyone I argue against.

South Korea has a similar climate - cold snowy winters. They were quick to isolate positive cases into quarantine hotels to reduce community spread

OMG ---- I can see the uk headlines now-

Depressed Grandmother forcibly imprisoned in quarantine hotel against her will.
Sobbing mother of 5 locked away in quarantine and DCs abandoned.
Government slammed for cruel treatment of Covid contacts.
Police slated over Covid arrests ......this ain't S Korea!

It's enough to make you want a labour government for a term, just to quieten the moaning ninnies a bit.

then you go look at the labour shadow cabinet and come to your senses. Dodds as Chancellor and Nandy as foreign sec? god help us!

"As I said on another thread, there are posters on MN who were very vehemently against closing our borders to prevent the spread."

See also the response in ?Feb/March 2020 to Trump's decision to ban flights from various places including Europe. And the WHO was advising against it. There has been quite a shift in mainstream opinion since then.

Not sure that we could ban all accompanied road freight without shortages of food, medicine, just in time manufacturing supplies. Some freight is unaccompanied, of course. Not to say it would not have been possible, but very complicated. Secured hotel-based quarantine for visitors would not have been as complicated though.

In case anyone missed that -- We are ahead of the game with the vaccine!!!!!!!!!

What? We approved it first but have been so slow to roll it out because our Government have had no foresight - despite knowing it was our route out of this - to ensure there were enough people trained to give the vaccine in a timely and effective manner

How do people believe approving a vaccine means we are somehow ahead of the game? Germany gave more vaccines out yesterday than we did despite approving the vaccine after us

You have very low standards op