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.

You really can’t compare New Zealand to the Uk
The UK is a cosmopolitan country and international business hub with flights from all over the world coming and going from its multiple airports and 23 miles from Mainland Europe
New Zealand is a couple of islands in the Southern Hemisphere thousands of miles from anywhere else with a population that is barely 1/2 that of London

New Zealand closed its borders when they had very few cases. That was in March 2020. I think by December 2019 it was in the UK and spreading fast.
I think before China had acknowledged there was a new virus it was already spread in the UK.

Youve made a blanket statement about everyone missing the elephant in the room when no one has done that

We’ve all said that covid isnt the UK governments fault

@sashagabadon 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.

I fully fully agree. The reason Taiwan were so quick to act was because of their terrible SARs experience. They raised the alarm. They got ignored. Not even responded to by the WHO. The WHO said not to close borders. It is so easy in hindsight to look back and say this now. But you are right. Could you imagine the furore if we had done so. And I agree in future there would no longer be this racist accusation now we have been through this and know what we do.

@RufustheSniggeringReindeer

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)

Oh how I miss the China threads...I was frequently called an idiot because I was in favour of strict rules to mange the pandemic. But look at us now...

Oh how I miss the China threads...I was frequently called an idiot because I was in favour of strict rules to mange the pandemic.
But look at us now..

Absolutely...i lurked, they were interesting threads though

@ShanghaiDiva you are right. Of course we should have been tougher sooner. But that is so easy to say now in hindsight. The WHO ignored Taiwan’s alarm. Do you really think the U.K. government would go against WHO advice? It’s interesting we hear very little now from the WHO. They have been discredited. Next time maybe we will ignore them and listen to countries like Taiwan.

@RufustheSniggeringReindeer

*Oh how I miss the China threads...I was frequently called an idiot because I was in favour of strict rules to mange the pandemic. But look at us now..*

Absolutely...i lurked, they were interesting threads though

Indeed. According to some posters I was a CCP plant. It was all highly suspicious...!

😀

ShanghaiDiva

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

So who is asking those questions and when can we expect any answers?

[quote Blessex]@ShanghaiDiva you are right. Of course we should have been tougher sooner. But that is so easy to say now in hindsight. The WHO ignored Taiwan’s alarm. Do you really think the U.K. government would go against WHO advice? It’s interesting we hear very little now from the WHO. They have been discredited. Next time maybe we will ignore them and listen to countries like Taiwan.[/quote]
Tougher sooner?
Am still waiting for us to get tough...still dithering, blustering and faffing.

@whatintheheck how often does your decision making cost thousands of lives or cripple businesses? I suppose you don't have leading scientists advising you on decisions too.

@Bythemillpond

ShanghaiDiva

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

So who is asking those questions and when can we expect any answers?

Who knows (no pun intended) I lived in China for 12 years and we may never know what really happened in Wuhan. But we can build on our own knowledge of action taken this time by our govt and other govts around the world and consider how we would handle things differently next time. One of the reasons Taiwan has been successful in managing the pandemic is due to their experience with SARS. I think we were a little complacent in the west initially believing Covid to be a China/Asia problem.

To give honest out of the two approaches ( gps tracking, sealing people into their homes etc) and the classic British fudge, I prefer the fudge and the dither.
Anyway, we’re not all fudge and either. Testing is brilliant now, 600k almost every day on average and a million vaccines given every 4 days or so. That is marvellous, the opposite of a dither or a bluster ( great descriptive words by the way )

@ShanghaiDiva I am no fan of this government. They could have done things better. But I am realistic enough to see that they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Could you even imagine the uproar had they followed the Chinese example of lockdown. We are a completely different political and cultural beast to countries such as Singapore and Thailand and we have a completely different geography and population density to New Zealand and Australia. So it’s very difficult to make comparisons. Again I am not saying that some things could not have been done better but the level of self-flagellation we have is far too high.

@sashagabadon Testing is brilliant now, 600k almost every day on average and a million vaccines given every 4 days or so. That is marvellous, the opposite of a dither or a bluster

Yes. Our testing figures have always been one of the highest in the world. Although you would never think so given the rhetoric. Our vaccine programme is also now one of the fastest in the world.

Things the government could have done differently.
Not sent thousands of Covid positive octogenarians back to the Petri dishes they call care homes. Any numpty could have seen that was fucking stupid.

Not initially told everyone to just wash their hands and underplayed the whole thing so stupidly the PM himself went around Covid wards shaking hands. I mean WTAF?

Licensed a decent track and trace system from a country with experience rather than insist we go our own way - look how that worked out.

Built Nightingale hospitals with no ability to staff them. Just why?

Failed to insist school return in the Summer when cases were low (see Japan ).

Changed the rules 64 times since March so no one has any confidence the government knows what it’s doing.

I could go on...

@Bythemillpond

ShanghaiDiva

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

So who is asking those questions and when can we expect any answers?

As soon as some MN'ers decide what the answers are? They seem to have the answers to everything. Rightly or wrongly all we really have is opinions that differ.

Whilst the vaccination programme is amazing, how we ended up here was a whole load of 'dither and bluster.' We are trying to vaccinate against the clock - a situation that could have been mitigated by making better choices earlier down the line.

We had the whole summer to get a decent track and trace system in place, instead we went into September with a system that had flaws. Even small delays in the test and trace add up to big numbers when you are dealing with a virus that has a 5 day incubation period.

Community testing was missing even getting peoples results to them in that window by 50% in September (all the 'good' figures were for hospital testing) - and that's before the trace element was implemented.

Whilst I don't blame government for Covid, I do believe that systematic failings have put us in the awful position of having lockdowns (which restrict out personal liberty and freedoms - and have wide ranging negative effects across many sectors of society), and a high death toll and huge pressures on the NHS. In fact we have the worse of both worlds - some of which could have been mitigated by better planning and decision making at key points in the pandemic.

@MrsFrisbyMouse Germany is in lockdown. As is Italy, France, the Netherlands and soon to be USA again. The list goes on.

And even Australia while not in lockdown are not able to travel state to state and have big gatherings - so are in a lockdown ‘lite’. This is the price of a viral pandemic.

[quote Blessex]@ShanghaiDiva I am no fan of this government. They could have done things better. But I am realistic enough to see that they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Could you even imagine the uproar had they followed the Chinese example of lockdown. We are a completely different political and cultural beast to countries such as Singapore and Thailand and we have a completely different geography and population density to New Zealand and Australia. So it’s very difficult to make comparisons. Again I am not saying that some things could not have been done better but the level of self-flagellation we have is far too high.[/quote]
I am not suggesting a China style lockdown, but some of the action taken here was just farcical.
If you introduce a tier system, but do not prevent travel between tiers (exceptions for work) then the tiers are going to be ineffective. If you allow mass events to go ahead when cases are already here and increasing, the virus will spread. If you don’t quarantine arrivals the virus continues to enter the country and so on.
My dh arrived back from China in July. He had to self isolate for 14 days which he did. However, nobody checked that he stayed at home, not even one phone call, despite all information on where he would be staying having to be submitted to uk border authority prior to his departure from China. He was also able to travel, if he wanted to, by public transport from Heathrow to our home, potentially infecting other people which makes a mockery of the home isolation restriction.

[quote Blessex]**@sashagabadon* Testing is brilliant now, 600k almost every day on average and a million vaccines given every 4 days or so. That is marvellous, the opposite of a dither or a bluster*

Yes. Our testing figures have always been one of the highest in the world. Although you would never think so given the rhetoric. Our vaccine programme is also now one of the fastest in the world.[/quote]
We weren’t testing people back in March. If you had symptoms you were told to stay at home.
For an example of effective testing I suggest looking at china’s Figures.

Built Nightingale hospitals with no ability to staff them. Just why?

This shows your naivety and privilege really.

If the NHS could no longer cope we had to have somewhere to put our sick. People with the tiniest bit of medical training were being called up left right and centre to go and staff them. We did not let go of the fact that we are a civilised country and had a plan for the absolute worst case scenario which at that time was a true possibility. You didn’t see that because you didn’t cotton on what it was telling you for whatever reason. You were blessed by your own ignorance.

The fact we didn’t need them is a good thing. We could never staff them properly. It would be anyone and all who could do a little to come and help. A disaster situation. I know a huge sigh of relief went through a lot of people who were asked but then no longer needed. Twisting it to be some kind of government bash is a bit distasteful.

The trouble is the government and their PR lackies think they can gaslight us into believing they’ve done a good job, or that, alas, there is simply nothing that could have been done.

But they fail to see that we know what’s happened before - no one is going to conveniently forget Boris shaking hands in the Covid Ward - and we know what is happening in other countries.

They’re going to have to face inquiry after inquiry on all this.

@HelloMissus

The trouble is the government and their PR lackies think they can gaslight us into believing they’ve done a good job, or that, alas, there is simply nothing that could have been done.

But they fail to see that we know what’s happened before - no one is going to conveniently forget Boris shaking hands in the Covid Ward - and we know what is happening in other countries.

They’re going to have to face inquiry after inquiry on all this.

The memory of Boris saying, during a press conference broadcast live that the nation, that be visited a covid ward and shook hands with everybody will be forever burned into my head. It's one moment that encapsulates the government's response to the pandemic. The recent decision to allow schools to return for one day after Xmas mixing before closing them as it was too risky for them to stay open comes a close second.

This government isn't responsible for the pandemic. We live in a very different society to those in China etc where people will accept very harsh lockdowns. We're also not New Zealand.
But, they have made some monumental cock ups that gave led to our death rate being as high as it is.