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.

Oh and it takes a particularly incompetent government to invite public criticism from the WHO.

Not families - socially distanced funerals.

Another article, published yesterday

amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/14/testing-times-how-uk-government-fell-short-again-and-again?__twitter_impression=true

What’s happening around the world is largely irrelevant. It’s what’s happening here, and how the government has failed to mitigate the effects that’s relevant.

Failed to learn from operation Cygnus
Failed to maintain the PPE stockpile
Failed to lock down quickly enough in March
Squandered massive amounts of public money on importing inadequate PPE whilst ignoring local capability
Squandered massive amounts of public money on an inadequate Test and Trace system whilst ignoring local public health capability
Encouraged people to engage in risky activity in the summer, whilst not encouraging less risky activity (eat out to help out only valid for sit in not takeaways)
Failed to heed the warnings of SAGE over the need to act in Autumn
Spent huge amounts of public money on refusing to fund school meals, and then squandered more on a very expensive method of providing the meals following a handbrake u turn.
Forced schools to open again in mid December
Unaccountably forced schools back for one day in January
Persisted In following a deranged LFT testing instead of isolating programme in schools
Failed to look after the self employed...

The vaccine roll-out is going quite well but that’s entirely down to the tireless efforts of the NHS and community pharmacy and has nothing to do with the government.

I disagree wiseup. Most European countries have had very similar problems, almost exactly the same and even countries in Europe that did well in the spring have issues now. Also you can’t just say a b c have gone wrong and the government is to blame but when d goes right it is nothing to do with the government. The vaccine roll out is the state working well behind the scenes. Each bit plays it’s part of course, scientists, nhs, pharmacy’s, IT, civil service, public, volunteers etc etc but co-ordination of it all is a function of government. It’s almost exactly what government is for.

you have neatly emphasised my point! I note you haven't suggested what they could have done differently....
Ok just a couple off the top of my head.

-They could have closed the borders earlier and stopped flights when we saw this coming.
-They could have paid the millions of pounds to a company that could have delivered track and trace rather than give it to their cronies, still not in place now.
-They could have not released Covid positive patients back into our care homes

• The PM should not have been boasting about shaking hands on Covid Wards

-The could have given clear messages on what was expected of the public in respect of restrictions -They could have reprimanded their own members for breaking the lockdown rules -They needed to include the self employed in furlough instead of allowing millions to fall through the gaps. -People are not going to isolate when the employers are demanding they work or not paying them for isolating- they should be paid. -If they decided lockdown was the way forward, it should have been done properly, not leaving garden centre and I don't know how many more shops open -UTurn on exams, They should have had a clear plan about exams and stuck with it, not all the uncertainty for our children -Another UTurn They should not have allowed children back to school for one day then dragged them back out without adequate notice for teachers

The vaccine roll-out is going quite well but that’s entirely down to the tireless efforts of the NHS and community pharmacy and has nothing to do with the government

Complete agree. The phrase ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ comes to mind.

One debacle that comes to mind as particularly getting my back up was the testing fiasco in September. The cries of ‘who could have predicted the extra demand for testing when schools reopened’ (everyone, quite literally everyone) and that Rees-Moggs arse getting away with calling us all whiners for wanting to get tests

They caused so much harm with that and even now you hear people telling others not to waste testing resources even though there’s no issue now. Resource needs to fit demand not the other way around and they played a blinder making the general public feel responsible for that one. Unforgivable imho.

@Tigger001 I bloody hate the ‘clever’ nicknames the daily mail come up with (remoaners, covidiots etc) but I could get on board with rebranding the Tories the Turnies.

The government has been slow at every turn. They’ve made it all worse. Reactive instead of proactive.

@whatintheheck

precisely my thoughts. And whilst it is lovely to think the government could 'prepare for a pandemic' - this is such a nebulous idea...noone could predict what the virus would be and how it would behave.

Well, that's not entirely true. The government's OWN pandemic/disaster plans included the need for large stockpiles of PPE on hand. But they simply allowed that to lapse and so did NOT have PPE on hand when the pandemic happened.

Of course the pandemic is not the government's fault. But there is no doubt in my mind that this government had done/not done many many things that have made it worse. I haven't read the whole thread, sorry, so I'm sure many of these things have been highlighted already. But everything from the PPE example above, to Boris Johnson not taking it seriously enough to even bother turning up at Covid meetings, to last minute-uturns on schools/lockdowns/restrictions. Very limited international travel restrictions. Piss poor track and trace system.

And of course, Dom the man and his perfectly reasonable 200 mile trip to check his eye sight.... That single instance, and the government's piss poor response, had, I believe, the biggest impact on whether regular citizens would take government rules/guidelines seriously etc.

@Directionerforever I don't think I said I was a hardened tory! my post was actually more about the perception that the crisis is the government's fault than about the their handling of the crisis. There is a subtle but important difference between the two.

Oh and scheduling a private plane to collect PPE to then have it standing on the runway to then inky return with ineffective PPE

@Tigger001 I bloody hate the ‘clever’ nicknames the daily mail come up with (remoaners, covidiots etc)

I normally see this done when people have no valid defence, so they name call, as that really proves the point

Well, that's not entirely true. The government's OWN pandemic/disaster plans included the need for large stockpiles of PPE on hand. But they simply allowed that to lapse and so did NOT have PPE on hand when the pandemic happened

The same disaster planning also highlighted the lack of respirators in the event of a chemical/gas terrorist arrack.

As it turns out respirators aren’t used as quickly for covid patients as at the beginning of the pandemic but the initial panic could have been subdued.

I don’t think anyone could meaningfully argue that we haven’t been under the threat of that kind of attack for at least the last decade (and in reality much, much longer).

@Tigger001 isn't hindsight a wonderful thing?

my post was actually more about the perception that the crisis is the government's fault than about the their handling of the crisis. There is a subtle but important difference between the two.

Coronavirus was not the Tories fault, the disastrous effect it has had on our country is, very much their fault.

@Cornettoninja this wasn't intended to be yet another post ab out the government's response to the crisis, I was thinking more about the perception that the whole crisis is somehow the fault of the government.

@tigger001 so lets go with this...which government, in a similarly populous and trade dependant country, has actually managed to get it right?

@Tigger001 isn't hindsight a wonderful thing

None of that was hindsight, please advise which parts you are relating to out of my list ?

[quote whatintheheck]@tigger001 so lets go with this...which government, in a similarly populous and trade dependant country, has actually managed to get it right?[/quote]
Germany.

Of course they have not got everything right, but the number of covid deaths /million is a fraction of that in the U.K., US, France, Spain etc.

@sashagabadon

I disagree wiseup. Most European countries have had very similar problems, almost exactly the same and even countries in Europe that did well in the spring have issues now. Also you can’t just say a b c have gone wrong and the government is to blame but when d goes right it is nothing to do with the government. The vaccine roll out is the state working well behind the scenes. Each bit plays it’s part of course, scientists, nhs, pharmacy’s, IT, civil service, public, volunteers etc etc but co-ordination of it all is a function of government. It’s almost exactly what government is for.

The fact other countries have mismanaged their response doesn’t mean that this government is doing OK.

And no, the difference between the test and trace debacle and the vaccine rollout is the latter - the actual implementation - has been effected almost entirely by the NHS running on fumes and enthusiasm, despite, not because of, the expensive management consultants swanning around and Johnson bleating about jabbing peoples’ arms.

[quote whatintheheck]@Cornettoninja this wasn't intended to be yet another post ab out the government's response to the crisis, I was thinking more about the perception that the whole crisis is somehow the fault of the government.[/quote]
The dividing line is very blurred though isn’t it? No I don’t think they caused covid and therefore the crisis. I do think they’ve made it worse than it needed to be, and hindsight is redundant since they’ve simply ignored (very public) warnings and advice till it’s harder to recover from. You seem very keen to defend their failings as lack of information/knowledge when it’s simply not true. They’re made bad decisions and taken very risky gambles.

It can be broken down into individual points where they’ve clearly caused harm and points where it was unavoidable but overall they’ve actively engineered worst case scenarios.

@tigger001 I can't actually find the will to reproduce all your points, but at a rough guess 75% relate to things we could only know once scientists had begun to understand the virus. how are you getting on with finding a country where the government has got it right??

[quote whatintheheck]@Cornettoninja this wasn't intended to be yet another post ab out the government's response to the crisis, I was thinking more about the perception that the whole crisis is somehow the fault of the government.[/quote]
That’s a massive straw man right there.

No-one is saying Covid is the government’s fault. But they can hardly lay the blame for it going so badly wrong at anyone else’s door.

@tigger001 so lets go with this...which government, in a similarly populous and trade dependant country, has actually managed to get it right?

Germany have done a better job of managing this than we have.

Okay, here’s foresight, since it hasn’t happened yet. If our government push on with using lateral flow tests in the place of isolation within schools, simply because they have spent the money and want to see the tests put to use, yes I will blame them for this.
Lots of things that people put down to the benefit of hindsight were obviously far in advance. This is just a nice timely example of something the government may well cock to, but haven’t fully done so yet.