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.

@Iggly, exactly...or look back at the post war period. There's always been a bit of blame game....

How you could not think that the leadership of a country isn't a contributing factor seems incredibly naive. If that was the case, why bother having any government at all?
BTW obesity is linked to poverty - look up the research.
Lack of direction has been a huge factor. Telling people that individualism is the most important thing - see Johnson's speeches, see Cummings.

And yes eat out to help out spread covid.

news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-eat-out-to-help-out-accelerated-second-wave-of-covid-19-study-says-12118285

[quote whatintheheck]@Iggly, exactly...or look back at the post war period. There's always been a bit of blame game....[/quote]
No, you misunderstand me - I do think Boris is to blame in part actually.

And those who defend this government are usually the same ones who blamed Labour for “spending all the money”.

I’ll add. For me it’s about the government taking responsibility for their actions. They don’t.

Haven’t read whole thread so apologies for any duplication but...

Data were available very early March 2020 to show what was happening elsewhere and that we needed to act. Norris was ‘shaking hands in hospitals’ and dismissing the science.

Weak and misleading messages for first weeks of pandemic, although he had moments where he was clear and gave strong messages when things had gotten really dire.

Cummings being pandered to and not sacked immediately was one of the key factors in starting off a diminishing compliance with the rules. Utterly disgusting.

Giving the track and trace job to his cronies rather than taking up the offer of a free, ready to go option. Absolute shambles.

Not to mention the previous grinding the NHS into the floor.

Lying about what they were achieving (counting one glove as one item of PPE)

I could go on but I’m depressing myself.

Theworldisfullofgs

And yes eat out to help out spread covid.

Yes! And that!! The stupid ‘get back to the office’ message That clearly went against the science.

@whatintheheck

There are not responsible for the pandemic, but they are leading our country through it and doing a poor job.

Their herd immunity plan in March made my jaw drop. We all saw the scenes from Italy and had the benefit of being able to act quicker - but didn't.

The same mistakes again were made at Christmas. Why on earth Boris allowed people to mix as cases were surging.

Boris doesn't act on the information until it's too late and makes statements that have no substance. Much like his Brexit campaign. .

The NHS is literally on its knees and we are not even in the peak yet. I've worked in a country with extreme poverty and limited healthcare and it is horrifying to see the suffering. We will be seeing similar cases here where we do not have the resources to treat people and those people will die.

I've not even gone into the defunding of the nhs over the last decade leaving us in a less resilient position than we would have been staffing and beds wise ( and also staff morale).

You should be furious with how this government has handled the pandemic and I hope you or your family have not suffered personally ( e.g. death/ long covid, lost job/ business) as many have and will in the future.

Isolatedizzy

Good summary!! I’d forgotten half of that. Anyone who has worked with Borris (and I know one personally) says he’s incompetent. This is what you get when you vote in someone who has no regard for anyone but themselves, lacks empathy, has no moral compass and just wanted power to enrich himself and his cronies.

...,and breathe....

Need to leave this thread. It’s making me so cross. He had deaths on his hands.

But the vaccine roll out is going marvellously. Everyone agrees on that and that must be down to government leadership too. Co ordinating it all, setting up the vaccine task force very early on, procuring a good selection of vaccines in good quantities etc. The logistics of it all. If the vaccine roll out continues at pace then I think people will forgive Boris shaking hands or whatever in March. I already roll my eyes when people mention Cummings as their excuse for anything.
Personally I don’t think Covid will define this government or Boris. People see the muddle most countries are in ( especially Europe). It’s bigger than what any one government does or does not do imo.
I think Brexit will be more of a defining issue over the next 4 years.

If Labour had been in charge when all this happened, the Lockdown Skeptics would have rallied with much more power about control freak socialists, etc. However bad you think covidiots are, they would have been far more visible and defiant under a left-wing govt during this pandemic. The British "people" get the politicians and policies they wanted. If British politicians responded to the pandemic badly -- blame the voters who put those politicians in power.

UK Scientists should get credit for the rapidly developed genomics programme & NHS gets credit for the very fast vaccine roll out -- especially PCNs. Local councils have worked their socks off for months in response to the pandemic, to try to manage hospital discharges of convalescents, localised outbreaks and support people struggling to isolate in own homes & other response measures: local councils as a group deserve huge kudos for their efforts.

Every infectious disease epidemiologist and local public health official I know has worked long unpaid hours this last year.

But the vaccine roll out is going marvellously. Everyone agrees on that and that must be down to government leadership too
Error no. I think that's down to the NHS knowing how to run mass vaccination programmes.
If the government had trusted the professionals in the NHS/councils to run test and trace rather than giving the contracts to consultancies I think we would be in a much better position.

I already roll my eyes when people mention Cummings as their excuse for anything

Me too.

I don't
It shows the very low regard this government has for the public, that they berate us all for high death rates from "breaking rules" (which personally I don't believe anyway) while simultaneously breaking rules themselves with no consequence.
The Cummings fiasco happened the same week my MIL died of breastfeeding cancer, having been alone in a nursing home separated from her family and husband for the previous 3 months due to covid.
What Cummings did was a huge slap in the face to families in positions like that sacrificing so much to follow the rules. It makes my blood boil. I will never "roll my eyes" about it.

People who say "No one expected this" - well, no, most of us didn't think about it day-to-day, but it was known that a pandemic was likely to hit at some point, and governments should be prepared for things like this. Not necessarily in great detail, but it should have been on their radar. It's like when any disaster happens - say a school has a fire and the building can't be used - Councils have plans in place for alternative buildings that can be fitted out; they don't go "Oh flip, we're going to have to find somewhere" and then there just happens to be an empty council building not too far away that can be used - that building may well have been kept empty for emergency use.

For instance, look at the PPE situation. A plan would have laid out what needed to be acquired, how it would be distributed, what kinds of companies have these supply lines already etc. When the pandemic appeared on the horizon, the government could have gone to companies and asked them to get plans in place, ordered preliminary supplies etc. Then as things got more serious they should have been working with these suppliers to really get things moving, so that PPE was here before it was needed.

Instead, they waited until it was too late, then handed contracts (apparently worth billions) to companies with no experience in this area, which happened to be run by their mates.

Once things really kicked off, they didn't do any better. Schools, for instance - sending kids back for 1 day after Christmas (hence spreading infection) and then closing everything. Why wasn't there a plan in place from August, to say that if rates were high in December then things would close early and reopen later?

This government has been a shambles. They have used the excuse that they have been taken completely by surprise, but they should not have been. It is the job of government to have plans in place for situations like this. They have failed to do their jobs, and made a bad situation considerably worse.

@QuentinWinters

But the vaccine roll out is going marvellously. Everyone agrees on that and that must be down to government leadership too Error no. I think that's down to the NHS knowing how to run mass vaccination programmes. If the government had trusted the professionals in the NHS/councils to run test and trace rather than giving the contracts to consultancies I think we would be in a much better position.

The nhs didn’t procure the vaccines or purchase them though. That is rightly a government function plus the co ordinating, high level decision making etc. That’s the government , it’s literally what the government is for. Nhs doing marvellous job rolling out etc but involving pharmacy’s, large vaccine centres, Asda etc, that’s the government. Military logistics getting the vaccine to all these sites safely / on time that is the government too.

And yes labour were not to blame for the global financial crisis either. It’s the same argument just from the other political side.

Opinions voiced on this thread about the government and it's handling of the pandemic are all immaterial. No one has any real idea of how things might have been handled differently by any other political party.
It's just what it is and like it or not, it's not going to change anything.

@Myalternate
I think in recent weeks we would have seen that Keir Starmer wanted (and having been in power, would have strongly pushed for) decisive action before Christmas and with more warning before schools went back.
However he wasnt in charge of Labour at the beginning of the pandemic and I've no idea how they would have been at the start.
I actually wish there had been a cross party coalition to deal with it although I did think KS was very gracious when lockdown was announced, and fully supported the gov, considering he had already suggested it days before!

Actually I think the two main parties have worked ok together. They have mainly been singing from the same hymn sheet with regards policies. Labours main complaint is that Boris is too slow not in the actions themselves. That hasn’t been the case in other countries notably the US and so I think that is a positive here generally.
I would actually like to see Keir being less lockdown though or at least acknowledging the harm lockdown does but he has taken the more lockdown position not less, which I guess is a political decision as polls support lockdown.
I read an account in the Guardian maybe in the late summer from a British journalist living in Portland in the US where there were nightly riots for weeks. She is now back in London. Anyway the jist of the article was that she was reading U.K. press about Cummings and wishing that was the main topic of discussion where she lived. She looked at that being our major outrage in the media with a sort of envy as opposed to riots and burning buildings.
I thought that was an interesting perspective.

For instance, look at the PPE situation. A plan would have laid out what needed to be acquired, how it would be distributed, what kinds of companies have these supply lines already etc. When the pandemic appeared on the horizon, the government could have gone to companies and asked them to get plans in place, ordered preliminary supplies etc. ........

Lack of PPE not wholly the governments fault at the outset.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/20/revealed-nhs-denied-ppe-at-height-of-covid-19-as-supplies-sent-to-china-coronavirus

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.euronews.com/amp/2020/03/06/coronavirus-french-protective-mask-manufacturer-scraps-nhs-order-to-keep-masks-in-france

[quote Fizbosshoes]@Myalternate
I think in recent weeks we would have seen that Keir Starmer wanted (and having been in power, would have strongly pushed for) decisive action before Christmas and with more warning before schools went back.
However he wasnt in charge of Labour at the beginning of the pandemic and I've no idea how they would have been at the start.
I actually wish there had been a cross party coalition to deal with it although I did think KS was very gracious when lockdown was announced, and fully supported the gov, considering he had already suggested it days before![/quote]
Implementation of a lockdown is not really something that only takes a few days. There are so many considerations and consequences to take into account.

To be fair it’s very easy for Keir to suggest things a few days before. That is the easy bit. He doesn’t need to action his suggestions, he just needs to talk. The government cannot make “suggestions” they need to make decisions and have a plan in place to carry out that decision when they announce it. Two very different positions. And Keir also wanted schools to stay open which I am really pleased to see.

I'm a swing voter so no I don't blame the evil child eating tories just because, because...

However I do feel they were sluggish to act back in march and I do believe someone in that science board suggested we let it run through us.... Which caused confusion and a relaxed approach eve though boris said '' some people say it should pass through us and I don't agree ''.

Someone in that science panel is toxic rot, and why not take the common sense caution approach first, eg masks, rather than throwing us to the wolves until the data slowly starts to seep through?.
Care home scandal will go down as a natinal crime, who gave the orders to move covid sick elderly people into nursing homes??

Their school advice is ridiculous... Valance, harries all stood there telling us indoor, indoor, indoor... Major transmission risks, masks sd but gaslight schools!!

However, you have to hand this beleaguered government massive congratulations On the vaccine program.
It's been astonishing and I'm very impressed.
I can't imagine how the people in the eu feel right now.
So that's amazing, amazing news.
But I'm very bitter about the school situation because it's clearly a crowd...

Matt Frei is interviewing Professor Ferguson on LBC atm.. It is very good.