Prime Minister to make an announcement tonight at 5 p.m.

[Calmandmeasured1]

The Express reports:
"No indication has been given as to why the briefing has suddenly been called, however, it comes less than 24 hours after false reports in the German media caused alarm by claiming the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was ineffective among over-65s."

It could also be to make the announcement about hotel quarantining for those entering the country. I would imagine both subjects.

@GetOffYourHighHorse ,no not that choice of people. The armed forces, the best and brightest from past and present.Anybody with one fucking tiny tiny shred of integrity.

@wanderings how can they talk about what happens next , until we get out of this, only when we appear to be beating this can we address issues such as missed school , like people asking what date will he announce this and that , but then complaining in next breath that they have learnt nothing , yet they have not to say too soon and give dates and promises .

Johnson was warned that a pandemic was overdue. He absolutely should have been prepared for one. In 2010 we were one of the best prepared nations in the world. And then we had austerity and Brexit. And Johnson can take responsibility for the latter.

@austenwildfell

Those of you who use every opportunity to vent personal opinions against The Prime Minister

Indeed, plenty of insults thrown at the current government MN-sytyle

Yes, he and the government are partially responsible for the issues, but this responsibility is shared with those who have been acting recklessly/selfishly over the last 10 months. It's not a one-way street.

Only yesterday a lot on here were admitting that they would join/start a riot and and there are countless threads of the type 'how long are you willing to continue with lockdown' - i.e. encouraging everyone to break the rules and cause havoc.

The public have a lot to answer for

If anyone wishes to check the latest cases/cases per 100k in your council, you can do so by checking the table on on www.covidmessenger.com which details the daily cases in every council in England - updated with today's data release.

Click the county column to sort the table by county and quickly see what is happening in your neighbouring councils and councils across your county.

And yet we have thousands of people who want no lockdown ? And many still breaking the rules. As Whitty said it’s a very fine balance between social effect and lockdown .

I do think some responsibility should be attributed to those who won’t follow the rules.

400 at a wedding
20 at a baby shower
Raves
Shopping without distancing or wearing a mask properly

Etc.

@madroid you know its not as easy for uk to implement quarantine as it is for nz / aus with hotels due to volume , I watched an australian lady who explained the difference.
Are other countries giving payments for isolating? I don't know but shouldn't people
Do the right thing , not all have broken for financial , I have read multiple posts on here where people isolating have gone for a walk etc , that doesn't seem to be case elsewhere

Whitty says can't relax restrictions due to new variant surprise not
Then there's going be another variant and another....

There aren’t enough words in my thesaurus of misery for the time I wasted listening to the first fifteen minutes.

'care about what he looks like.This fool in his ill fitting suit,slouching, with his crazed hair is our leader.Think on that, one who leads. '

Well how shallow. It's like all the posters on sm going on about Sturgeon's terrible make up that look like it was out on with a trowel in the dark and mahoosive eye bags. Lets judge on actions not appearance hmm?

That said Johnson may appear bumbling but he is very intelligent and sharp. He always knows the details of what he is talking about at pmqs. You mustn't be taken in by his messy hair do and umms and aahs.

@adelah were we not prepared for a flu pandemic though ? Ppe does have a use by date as well and who warned boris we would def have a pandemic just like this ??

[quote donewithitalltodayandxmas]@madroid you know its not as easy for uk to implement quarantine as it is for nz / aus with hotels due to volume , I watched an australian lady who explained the difference.
Are other countries giving payments for isolating? I don't know but shouldn't people
Do the right thing , not all have broken for financial , I have read multiple posts on here where people isolating have gone for a walk etc , that doesn't seem to be case elsewhere [/quote]
Other counties with quarantine rules include China, Thailand, HK, Singapore: it’s not a UK/NZ comparison.

@trulydelicious

Exactly .

The responsibility is not black and white .

And although it escapes the media we are not the highest rate per 100000 in Europe .

But we probably the most densely populated.

@GetOffYourHighHorse

It's all Johnson's fault! even in devolved administrations

Agree. Some posters have lost the ability to engage their brain

@GetOffYourHighHorse yes exactly listen to what they say and do who cares if hair is messy or make up not great , there is enough to pull them up on , rather than personal insults.

'Yes, he and the government are partially responsible for the issues, but this responsibility is shared with those who have been acting recklessly/selfishly over the last 10 months. It's not a one-way street.'

This with bells on.

Mn is full of 'I'll do what I want! i need to see me pals and the stasi government can't curtail me liberties!' posters.

@donewithitalltodayandxmas

you know its not as easy for uk to implement quarantine as it is for nz / aus with hotels due to volume

People should stop travelling unless absolutely necessary FFS!

donewithitall Here’s a screenshot of an article that gives a helpful summary

@Unsure33 no not quite the worse per capita but creeping up but italy are quite close behind. The media have been atrocious in all this with so many mixed messages as well and I don't think they have helped at times.
Germany were doing so well and its really shot up there this wave .

Sorry, I should also mention that I am sure many of you heard the somewhat overwhelming statistic quoted by the Head of NHS England in today's press release:

~18K covid patients in hospital on Dec 25th versus 37k+ today.

You can graphically see this statistic - and the astonishing increase in cases since mid/late Dec for each region in England here:

www.covidmessenger.com/hospital-cases/

While some of the worst hit regions are seeing a "leveling off" of hospital cases, there is some anecdotal data to suggest that this may be diversions of patients to other regions as hospitals are already full.

The scale of this is very hard to quantify - I guess I would simply caution that perhaps the "leveling off" apparent in a couple of regions may not be quite "real" yet.

'Other counties with quarantine rules include China'

I believe China has the CCP running the show. So comply or be arrested or even worse. That wouldn't work here.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

Come off it . He looked absolutely exhausted .

And he took responsibility .

Personally I don’t think it’s all his fault as a proportion of the British public just don’t give a damn or have any common sense .

Whatever he did 50% of the population won’t agree anyway .

Add that to a pandemic and he does not stand a chance really .

[quote Unsure33]@trulydelicious

Exactly .

The responsibility is not black and white .

And although it escapes the media we are not the highest rate per 100000 in Europe .

But we probably the most densely populated.[/quote]
I thought that too i.e that we were the most densely populated, but we aren't - we are number 8 in Europe. With Belgium, the Netherlands, and Malta above us. Luxembourg and Germany not far behind either.

@adeleh but again I thought we were prepared for a flu pandemic of which this isn't ? I may be wrong .
But nobody could of predicted this and what about wales and scotland did they not have this , and other countries do many have this.?

@Unsure33 we have a lot of low density housing. No Haussman era housing or banlieue that France has, no soviet era blocks as found in Berlin. Much less multi-generational households than Italy.

We had three weeks warning to act in March. We are an island and can close borders.

We should have had a lower death rate than in mainland Europe, not a higher one.