Is there a reason we are the country that's been worst hit economically and had the worst death rates

[velveteenrabbittales]

Trying to work out why, do we have a more elderly and unhealthy population? Has the whole thing been managed badly? Should we have resisted lockdown? We've ended up with the double whammy why is it?

Just sheer bad luck. The government have done their very best.

@MaxNormal

Fat people who vote badly?

I think maybe one of the main reasons is that lockdown is barely enforced (Im having to go into work for a non essential office job that could and should be done from home). Self isolation isnt checked. I wasnt checked up on following my return from Spain after quarantine being introduced last July. I had a meeting with a Romanian client the other day. She'd travelled back to Romania around the christmas period. Checks were made on her being in SI multiple times a day by the authorities - she literally had to go and stand at her front window to prove she was at the address she'd given for SI. She made a comment that friends of hers in Poland had to do likewise, and that people in former communist countries were more used to doing as theyre told by the authorities. Another reason could be that people somehow dont see it as something that will directly affect them 🙄.

@User133847

Just sheer bad luck. The government have done their very best.

You're not in the UK then?!

Different statistical reporting practices
The UK is densely populated and in many towns is ethnically diverse with three generations in one home.
The UK has an ageing, chronically ill but well medicated population.

For those saying we should have locked down before 23rd March, London had pretty much emptied by 16th.

The gravest error imo was not having a short, sharp lock around October half term and allowing the travel corridors over the summer.

History will tell us if our economy and death rates are the worst.

Realistically, right now, we have a high and dense population and a government that seems to be doing what it can to avoid lockdowns. Unfortunately, sometimes lockdowns are necessary and with hindsight we should have locked down earlier, tighter (especially our borders) and for longer.

I can’t imagine the history books will look down kindly on many (any?) of Boris Johnson’s decisions but I’m not convinced Jeremy Corbyn or Jo Swinson were the party leaders to do a good job either.

We're the fattest country in Europe and also collectively have a complete lack of willingness to accept that this has health consequences. Any coronavirus thread that points out that obesity is a huge risk factor is accused of fat shaming.

We've lost the ability to "see" obesity. I've lost track of the number of news items I've seen of people either dying or being seriously ill with Covid being described as having "no underlying conditions" and "completely healthy", when they are clearly very overweight.

@Sakura7

It has been managed extremely badly, and no, resisting lockdown would not have helped the situation (what a bizarre idea).

It was the UK's reluctance to lockdown in the early stages, when the vast majority of countries around Europe were doing so, that caused the high case numbers and death toll. Having football matches, Cheltenham, concerts, etc, still happening in the middle of March (when everyone had locked down) was insanity.

This^.

Also I read an interesting article in the papers a few days ago in which a university professor was saying the Government minimised the threat of the virus coming from Europe and focused too much on Asia instead.

Yes, a very simply one: Tory government full of incompetent, arrogant, deceitful, greedy fools who have mismanaged every aspect of this pandemic so far.

@EvelynBeatrice look at America though they barely locked down and we have a higher death rate per capita than they do. Surely they are on a par with us when it comes to statistics and reporting data

@didireallysaythat I think you're on to something there, the over reliance on the service sector, arts etc is a massive issue. Maybe in the future there will be more of a focus on STEM

I can’t imagine the history books will look down kindly on many (any?) of Boris Johnson’s decisions but I’m not convinced Jeremy Corbyn or Jo Swinson were the party leaders to do a good job either.

I wonder whether under a different govt public compliance would have been worse. I think overall a Labour government may have made much better decisions but they may have struggled to get people to comply - I also wonder if they might have tried more heavy-handed enforcement.

The decent levels of compliance and trust in the government at the early stages were squandered when Cummings was excused. They could have made an example of him, said ‘the rules apply to everyone’ ‘your sacrifices have made a difference’ - it wouldn’t have harmed him at all and would have been excellent PR, across the political spectrum.

I actually would have preferred Theresa May 🙈.

We have yet to count the cost of mental health and higher rates of death from heart disease and cancer arising from lock downs. In my view we should have shielded those at high risk from Covid and those at low risk should have carried on for the sake of the economy.

And there should have been greater clarity about the statistical risks for those at low risk. As a 60 year old woman I would have no objection to going to work but I am working from home. DH has to go in for some things as a keyworker and has no concerns about doing so. My organisation employs 1000 people in London. The highest number of staff with Covid has been 6.

It was the UK's reluctance to lockdown in the early stages, when the vast majority of countries around Europe were doing so, that caused the high case numbers and death toll

I don't understand why people keep repeating this.

Lockdown is not determined by the date on the calender. It is calculated by the stages of virus spread. So while Italy was ahead of us in spread and so locked down earlier by date, we actually locked down around the same stage at numbers of infections and deaths. This was repeated across Europe. There wasn't much difference between the stages countries locked down

@ConfusedcomMum me too. Even Jeremy Hunt

Um, somewhere like South Korea is half the size of the UK, with near the same population. Population density may be a factor but no the overriding one.

How about ‘back to the office and save Pret’ in September, followed by a u-turn a few weeks later? Sending university students with no place for testing? Or sending children in to school for one day of unnecessary mixing in January, when SAGE has warned in December that schools would have to close to get the R below 1 with the new variant?

So so many bad choices.

@MaxNormal

Fat people who vote badly?

This?

@SpicyChickpeas

Trying to work out why, do we have a more elderly and unhealthy population?

Our elderly live to much older ages but don't necessarily carry good health forward with them. Many spend a couple of decades with poor health propped up by medication. You only have to sit inside a doctors surgery to see that they are overwhelmed with older people.

Also, our country is overweight, eat complete crap and gets very little exercise. There are extremes where some people, usually younger, are vegan, fitness obsessed and very health conscious and don't drink and then there are the polar opposites.

We are a very unhealthy, unfit nation and this has been reflected in the death toll. Our eating is only going to get worse. Companies like "Just Eat" should be banned. Now you can ring up and get a Macdonalds delivered to your house and some Greggs cream buns for dessert. At least before you had to burn off a couple of calories walking for the carpark to the shop.

We are all going to end up like the humans in WAll-E

Good point about relative health of elderly

Two words:

First word: Sounds like Morris but with a B.

Second word: US slang for a penis.

@Hazelnutlatteplease

idon’t think there’s great scientific evidence to back up advising the population to start taking vitamins and sleeping on their stomachs (I have never heard this).

Yes vitamin D is very well evidenced eg [[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12020-020-02597-7 here]. I remember it being suspected right at the start when places getting initially worse hit were on a similar line of latitude.

Sleeping on stomachs is very well known amongst OTs and Physios working with Covid.

Yes these are two things you should definitely be doing under prevention and helping yourself when you are ill

NICE don’t agree.

Based on direct evidence from the NICE evidence review and indirect evidence from the SACN rapid review of vitamin D in acute respiratory tract infection (which did not include COVID‑19 as an outcome), the panel agreed that there was not enough evidence to recommend vitamin D supplements solely for preventing COVID‑19.

www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng187/chapter/Rationale
Taking vitamin D is a generally good thing but there isn’t clear evidence to back up using it for covid prevention.

Companies like "Just Eat" should be banned. Now you can ring up and get a Macdonalds delivered to your house and some Greggs cream buns for dessert. At least before you had to burn off a couple of calories walking for the carpark to the shop

I agree. The government wants to ban advertising for foods high in sugar, fat and salt. I am not sure about that but I do think there's a case for banning ads for takeaway services.

@TornadoOfSouls I agree with literally everything you've said. I often wonder if anything would be different under a Labour or even a coalition government

This was repeated across Europe. There wasn't much difference between the stages countries locked down

Europe as a whole is not where I'd look to for inspiration on how to manage a pandemic.

Several reasons:

• Brexit is also affecting economy so double hit

• UK has very high rate of over crowding due to ongoing decades old housing crisis. People jammed like sardines into too small flats and houses are more likely to spread Covid. Look at London.

-lax lockdown rules with too many exceptions and enough people refusing to follow them (illegal parties, household mixing etc)

• Christmas madness of pretending no Covid so go ahead and have school children fresh from school mixing with grandparents.

-A slashed to the bone NHS purposely being let to fail so that politicians can finally sell it off to their friends (in whose businesses they have invested)