Do people really think Covid is a problem caused by Boris and his government?

[whatintheheck]

I am astounded by some of the comments on here and in the wider press and social media that seem to imply that the situation in the UK is somehow the government's fault. Are people really silly/naive enough to think that? Perhaps a glance at pretty much every other country in the world might give a hint that there are no easy answers. I would love to hear what people think our government could do or have done differently....surely the answer lies in the population adjusting its behaviour until the vaccine is rolled out???? There is always the NZ option of literally shutting the doors, but this has killed their economy. Difficult choices.

@Blessex

It’s very interesting how people are very quick to blame our government and completely forget that it was the Chinese Government who covered this up at the beginning and let it get out worldwide.

Where and how the virus started and our govt’s handling of the subsequent pandemic are separate. We were slow to react. Australia stopped entry from China on 1st Feb (with the exception of Australian nationals and those with permanent residency) and required self isolation for 2 weeks for those who were permitted to enter from China. It was our govt’s decision not to take action.

My staff (not healthcare) need PPE at times - I don't blame the government if I run out. I just make sure I don't run out

The NHS is under government control and don’t have the freedom to source their own PPE outside of the official channels, the budget unless it’s approved much higher up nor space to stockpile PPE in the quantities needed for such a large workforce.

That’s why we have a Health Secretary and not a whatintheheck’s company secretary.

its interesting how this thread has drifted back to the usual debate of what the government may or may not have done wrong. Of course we will never know, as we can't predict what would have happened if they had done the complete opposite of everything they had done.

This is totally apologistic thinking. Are we never to hold a government to account? Do we not have democratic accountability (And wasn't that the point of Brexit?)

The government have patently made some huge errors. When you have Independent Sage saying week after week after week that case numbers mean we have no choice but to lockdown (since Nov) you cannot possibly argue the poor beleaguered govt. didn't know and are innocent of the thousands of extra deaths that were caused by locking down late. That's not to mention issuing the wrong rules for Christmas and allowing children to return for a day at the start of term.

When I read threads like this I think it's the Tory party machine trying to set the narrative early on for the inevitable time when they are (completely correctly) held to account.

I fear they would be

There would be some posters praising them no matter what they did

There would be some posters slagging them off no matter what they did

And there would be the majority of posters having a problem with some of their policies (or the way they e dealt with the pandemic) and not with others

In exactly the same way there is now

Its a boring and lazy trope on this forum (and im sure others) that if you have an issue with a tory policy that means you are a Corbyn loving labour voter

it’s very interesting how people are very quick to blame our government and completely forget that it was the Chinese Government who covered this up at the beginning and let it get out worldwide

Oh for goodness sake

There've been post after post on exactly that

But this is a thread about OUR governments actions

Not one post has blamed the government for covid itself its their handling of it once it was here that the thread is about

The OP even said ‘the situation in the UK’ and ‘what they could have done or do differently’

@ShanghaiDiva the WHO said NOT to close borders. Trump attempted and got roundly put down. Our government were following WHO advice. China should be held to account for covering this up. They KNEW about it and shut the mouths of the whistle blowers as the Chinese government does.

It’s disgusting really. China wanted to save face and not tell the world what was going on. The WHO should also be held to account - they are in the Chinese governments pocket. They didn’t even know and declare that covid was capable of human to human transmission before it was too late. The reason governments all round the world were late is because China covered it up and the WHO didn’t have the right info to give the right advice. It is disgusting really. And not only that they have only just been allowed into Wuhan to investigate where this all started. Only just allowed in!!!!!!!

[quote Blessex]@ShanghaiDiva the WHO said NOT to close borders. Trump attempted and got roundly put down. Our government were following WHO advice. China should be held to account for covering this up. They KNEW about it and shut the mouths of the whistle blowers as the Chinese government does.[/quote]
I am not suggesting China should not be held to account, but I hold our govt to account for the actions they did/did not take.
If our govt chose to follow WHO advice and not close borders there were other options open to us: quarantine for arrivals from China, self isolation for arrivals from China...we chose to do nothing.
I arrived in the UK on a flight from HK in Feb. Plane was full of mainland Chinese. The only action taken by our govt: a leaflet stating that if you had been in Wuhan and develop symptoms don’t go the doctor but seek medical advice. By that stage the virus was in every province in China (including where I lived) but we thought a leaflet about Wuhan was enough...

I think the government are trying to please everyone and ending up pleading no one.

I think there was a reluctance to close the country down as the headlines would have read that the conservatives were killing thousands and they had blood on their hands. I personally think we shouldn’t have had the first lockdown.
Yes there would have been more deaths but in the long run the death rate would be lower than what we have now which is a very high deaths and rising and potentially another half a million people dying because of the effects of the lockdowns etc.
It has been shown lockdowns don’t work.
Belgium had lockdowns and curfews and has the worst figures in Europe.
Spain and Italy locked down much harder and longer and are not much better.
Sweden might not be far behind with their death rate but are still lower than those countries who did lockdown and didn’t completely wreck their economy.

@ShanghaiDiva I am afraid quarantine from people from China would not have worked. It was already in Europe. My DS caught it in Feb when he went to Dubai and UAE. It was too late. Why? Because China covered it up.

@Blessex

It’s disgusting really. China wanted to save face and not tell the world what was going on. The WHO should also be held to account - they are in the Chinese governments pocket. They didn’t even know and declare that covid was capable of human to human transmission before it was too late. The reason governments all round the world were late is because China covered it up and the WHO didn’t have the right info to give the right advice. It is disgusting really. And not only that they have only just been allowed into Wuhan to investigate where this all started. Only just allowed in!!!!!!!

Not all govts were late to take action. Take a look at Taiwan and HK.

[quote Blessex]@ShanghaiDiva I am afraid quarantine from people from China would not have worked. It was already in Europe. My DS caught it in Feb when he went to Dubai and UAE. It was too late. Why? Because China covered it up.[/quote]
Of course quarantine works it stops more cases coming in.
Countries which have lower cases than us all have effective quarantine measures in place:
Singapore. Thailand, China, HK, Australia, NZ..

Amazed at the misinformation that’s around. Contrary to killing their economy as OP suggests, New Zealand’s pandemic response has protected it.

www.ft.com/content/b8c4ab58-99db-4af2-9449-5fd70a9235ce

Countries that moved quickly and decisively have experienced the least economic damage and loss of life. The pandemic wasn’t the UK government’s fault, but its response has been one of the worst in the world and has undoubtedly made the economic damage and loss of life worse than it had to be.

Says it all

I would like to know what action is going to be taken against China and the WHO.

What sort of plans are going to be put in place to stop another virus getting out and being covered up until it has been spread around the world

Or aren’t we supposed to ask those sort of questions because it might offend someone?

@Bythemillpond

I would like to know what action is going to be taken against China and the WHO.

What sort of plans are going to be put in place to stop another virus getting out and being covered up until it has been spread around the world

Or aren’t we supposed to ask those sort of questions because it might offend someone?

I think it is important to ask those questions.

@ShanghaiDiva you talk about Taiwan. Yes we should have heeded Taiwan indeed. But look at the response they got when they wrote to the WHO. Nada. Nothing. Ignored. Why? Because the WHO are in the Chinese governments pocket. It’s disgusting.

Taiwan’s success should be attributed to early preparedness, health expertise, government competence, and popular alertness. On December 31, Taiwan’s government, alarmed by developments in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the virus first appeared, expressed concerns to the World Health Organization (WHO) about the virus’s potential for human-to-human transmission. But it received no reply. Instead, the WHO endorsed China’s denial of human-to-human transmission until January 21. While the WHO appeared to downplay the global threat, Taiwan adopted vigorous measures for screening, testing, contact tracing, and enforcing quarantines. These measures were aided by technology and big data, as well as the cooperation of citizens who remain highly vigilant due to their traumatic 2003 experience with SARs.

So while we are all here busy trying to blame uk individuals and our government we are all completely missing the elephant in the room.

So while we are all here busy trying to blame uk individuals and our government we are all completely missing the elephant in the room

So why weren’t you on the china blaming threads then?

Did you miss them

They were mainly last year discussing covid in general and saying that the Chinese government covered it up

You could always start a thread discussing it again...its back in the news (not that it left but they are sending scientists into wuhan)

I certainly think it will easier for our government to close borders in future similar situations. They now know the public won’t call them racist for doing so which they didn’t know back in Feb. Trump did call for flights from China to be stopped back in late jan or Feb I think and was called exactly that so it is not an easy decision for a government to take particularly one with a major hub like Heathrow plus diplomatically it has implications.
I remember Nancy Pelosis in China town in I think New York in mid Feb telling everyone to go there ( implying trump was being anti- Chinese with a flight ban ) so it is not obvious a more left wing government would have closed borders any quicker than a more right wing one.

@RufustheSniggeringReindeer the title of this thread is ‘do people think that Covid is a problem caused by Boris and his government’. My answer to that question that has been posed is no. Why would I want to start a new thread. I am answering the question posed by this one.

I think that the current government were -

Slow to react initially
Slow to set up testing, and subsequent test and trace systems (and within that - huge delays and flaws within the system itself)
Slow to react to rising case numbers in the North West and North East at the end of the summer
Slow to react to rising case numbers and new information as the new variant took hold.

Seems to have been to many 'wait and see' moments when faced with the prospect of exponential growth.

Of course the virus isn’t their fault but we have one of the worst death rates in the world as the government hasn’t implemented lockdowns early enough

[quote Blessex]@ShanghaiDiva you talk about Taiwan. Yes we should have heeded Taiwan indeed. But look at the response they got when they wrote to the WHO. Nada. Nothing. Ignored. Why? Because the WHO are in the Chinese governments pocket. It’s disgusting.

Taiwan’s success should be attributed to early preparedness, health expertise, government competence, and popular alertness. On December 31, Taiwan’s government, alarmed by developments in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the virus first appeared, expressed concerns to the World Health Organization (WHO) about the virus’s potential for human-to-human transmission. But it received no reply. Instead, the WHO endorsed China’s denial of human-to-human transmission until January 21. While the WHO appeared to downplay the global threat, Taiwan adopted vigorous measures for screening, testing, contact tracing, and enforcing quarantines. These measures were aided by technology and big data, as well as the cooperation of citizens who remain highly vigilant due to their traumatic 2003 experience with SARs.[/quote]
But the point is we could have been like Taiwan. We had a choice.
Ranting about China and the cover up does not address the decisions taken by our govt.
HK also implemented quarantine for anyone who has been in mainland China in the 14 days prior to arriving in HK. This started back in February. Again we did nothing. We watched what was happening in Italy, saw cases increase in this country and then allowed events such as Cheltenham racing, crufts etc to go ahead. These were the choices we made and have nothing to do with the Chinese govt’s actions.

[quote Blessex]@RufustheSniggeringReindeer the title of this thread is ‘do people think that Covid is a problem caused by Boris and his government’. My answer to that question that has been posed is no. Why would I want to start a new thread. I am answering the question posed by this one.[/quote]
Maybe read the OP as well?

The OP is asking what the uk government should do or should have done

Or is that your answer...the UK government should do nothing and just keep saying ‘we didnt start it’

Everyone on the thread has said no to that particular question