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.

Johnson may appear bumbling but he is very intelligent and sharp.

He's not, actually. His grasp of Latin is dreadful, all learned by rote, and he wasn't clever enough for PPE so was schooled into the elitist stream of Classics to get him into Oxford.

*He always knows the details of what he is talking about at pmqs.

No he doesn't. He's a national embarrassment.

You mustn't be taken in by his messy hair do and umms and aahs.

He's incoherent. See 'national embarrassment' above.*

I agree 100%. I could spout Latin very easily. Doesn’t mean I understood it though. It’s as if he is acting - playing the part of a genius, maverick, Bohemian leader when he is actually a bumbling idiot without the critical thinking, decision making skills or concentration needed for such a position.

That made me so angry when he kept saying he trusted people to do the right thing and to follow the guidance. There just isn’t that sort of culture here where people do the right thing for the common good. There is a great emphasis here on the individual rather than the collective. As such there needed to be a more authoritative approach - this is what is happening, this is what you have to do and what the consequences of not doing that would be. Too little, too late and too much credit given to the general public = too many deaths.

Yea a minority have broken the law but scientists have previously said that compliance was much higher than expected. Even Patel said last week that the vast majority were doing the right thing.

So can we stop blaming the public? I know it's a great get out for the government

And when cummings made up his fairy story excuses about Durham/Barnard Castle they probably did lose a fair bit of compliance then

[quote Unsure33]@venus22

Dianne Abbott

Then we will only have 3000 deaths .[/quote]
Priti Patel wouldn't even be able to read the numbers.

I appear like a middle aged woman with bad hair and bad teeth and overweight too. Do you think I could stand up and talk shit and kill off hundreds of thousands of people?

sorry if random, just back to the China pp's comments (they've gone now I think sadly) I don't think the way covid is being dealt with or the way the world is going (climate change, migration due to poverty etc) is making capitalism as we know it seem a great option.

We had all been having a calm non political discussion about social attitudes to a pandemic before slagging off a man who tbh today looked shattered

I think he does look shattered.

I don't trust his decision making in the state he is.

@BonnieDundee

Yea a minority have broken the law

I've seen a lot of people complying with the guidance but also some taking the piss. The problem is that it only takes a few to propagate the virus.

So can we stop blaming the public

No, because they absolutely carry some of the blame for this

@chomalungma

I don't trust his decision making in the state he is

Yes, sure, more spin. What will you come up with next?

Bonnie. Im not blaming the public but blaming Johnson for relying on them to do the right thing. To me that shows be doesn’t understand the sense of individualism there is here. That too great a number of people would simply refuse to follow the rules. He then puts the blame on the public when it’s his poor judgement that led him to not be quick enough or clear enough on the rules or decisive enough to ensure they were policed better. It was just a shambles from the word go by his entire government.

@ancientgran.

Exactly.

@Stovetopespresso

I don't think the way covid is being dealt with or the way the world is going (climate change, migration due to poverty etc) is making capitalism as we know it seem a great option

Feel free to hijack the thread to push you agenda

[quote Unsure33]@peak2021

Do you have a theory as to why Belgium actually has the highest rate of death per 100000 population?[/quote]
On a BBC programme months ago, I remember them saying the Belgians were counting any death that might be covid as covid and that their excess deaths did equal covid deaths which indicated that they had got the figures right.

[quote trulydelicious]@chomalungma

I don't trust his decision making in the state he is

Yes, sure, more spin. What will you come up with next?[/quote]
He's shattered. He has been through so much.

When people are tired, decision making goes to pot.

I have dreams about this....he stands down, and someone capable takes over.............

Who?

Who takes over and what do they do now? There's always loads of lists of where he went wrong and how terrible he is and what a dreadful hash he's made of things prior to where we are now, but no one seems to want to say what they themselves would do now in his place, or who they'd like to take his place when he resigns as demanded and what they would want to see the incumbent do.

Not quite sure why I’m being asked about lockdown, but sinceI am, I think we should have locked down sooner and harder both in Feb and in Sep/ Oct. I really wish we’d had a short, sharp circuit breaker over half term in October.

I actually think people would be reasonably compliant. Most people I know want to do what they can to try to get this thing under control. Every country has those who don’t want to stick to the rules. We are no worse than other nations for that.

truly So other countries/governments around the world should have foreseen this too and didn't either. How come?

Didn't we discuss this before? They did. Taiwan started boarding planes in December to do health checks because they started to see people flying in from Wuhan ill and they have been on watch for another Coronavirus throughout Asia since 2003. The internet in Asia was also full of medical staff in Wuhan sidestepping the great firewall to alert the rest of Asia just as they did with SARs. Taiwan implemented its pandemic strategy in January. www.thelancet.com/journals/lanwpc/article/PIIS2666-6065(20)30044-4/fulltext

Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and other Asian countries had plans in place post SARs which they implemented because if you lived in Asia in 2003 you were left in no doubt that we had got away lightly with SARS and next time it would be more infectious, and the world's scientific community knew that too. Arden has been quite explicit that she followed the example of Asian countries that were suppressing the virus.

I know for a fact that there are Mandarin speaking analyst in GCHQ who would have picked up on that Wuhan chatter, and there was a blueprint for a pandemic response using our public health resources albeit assuming flu. However Johnson with Cummings in his ear was always going to ignore our Scientists and Public health resources in favour of Cummings embrace of half arsed right wing theories theories of herd immunity (it was all in his blogs long before Covid) and moonshot plans for testing and tracing that had none of the boring feet on the ground / years of experience and local knowledge that make the responses in Asia work.

Carly2803 Since the Wuhan out break China has acted quickly on each outbreak with mass testing, sometimes of millions which they can do because with so few cases they can practise a batch testing technique whereby you test batches of 100 and then only test individuals in a batch when the virus shows up. We can't do that because it is so widespread every batch would test positive so you would double test. Without a doubt they are lying especially in relation to what is happening in the concentration camps in Xinjiang. but they do know how to control the virus when they want to. Their response is not quite as superefficient as the stereotypes suggest. Their track trace app issued you with a QR code if you were not required to isolate, if you were required to isolate all you had to do was screen shot somebody else's code.... Thing is infection control is like a succession of leaky sieves, eventually there are enough barriers to infection for it to fail to get through....

He always knows the details of what he is talking about at pmqs

He does not!

I cringe at him at PMQs. He just throws insults and loves the drama. I dream of the day he remembers he's running the country and in the commons and not at Eton and trying to be leader of the common room.

I dont understand this blame culture .who do we blame for a new virus? Mother nature ? God ?
I agree Boris Johnson seems disordered and not very smart but do you think the smartest , cleverest prime minister can obliterate a new virus? Seems unlikely. For all countries that have low numbers right now , it will come back .
I dont think blaming people or the government for deaths is the right thing..this virus was always going to kill many people whether all at once or slowly over a long period of time.

@Emilyontmoor

Any examples in the West for a fairer comparison (or should we only look East)?

He's a contemptible piece of shit and I hope he's haunted for the rest of his life for not having the balls to lockdown harder and earlier. Instead this ridiculous last minute excuse for decision making which drags this situation on and on.

@emilyontmoor yet trump
Was criticised when he closed borders ??

The majority haven’t been following the rules though, have they? I would say a large percentage haven’t, some not as much as others, but as someone upthread said, Boris definitely over estimated the intelligence of the general public. Some people are too stupid to understand the consequences of what they’re doing, and no leader can do anything about that.

Who takes over and what do they do now? There's always loads of lists of where he went wrong and how terrible he is and what a dreadful hash he's made of things prior to where we are now, but no one seems to want to say what they themselves would do now in his place, or who they'd like to take his place when he resigns as demanded and what they would want to see the incumbent do.

OK. The All Party Parliamentary Group on Covid took hours of hours of evidence from all parts of society on the effects of covid and the lessons that could be learned, so there is a sensible expert driven plan in place. appgcoronavirus.marchforchange.uk/interim_report As a start he needs to accept that his testing factories are not working because their processes are unsafe and they are short of staff because they do not train them adequately and treat them like commodities, but that there are a host of public labs who have the staff and highly effective processes but can't get the machines they need because they are all tied up in the superlabs. So fund the small labs and put them in charge of the superlabs and get rid of the inexperienced private sector managers trying to run them like callcentres. Then put track and trace under the control of public health officials who know the local ground. Third provide funding to make sure people do not have a choice between getting food on the table and isolating, then make isolation compulsory and introduce monitoring systems to ensure compliance. Manage the borders and ensure compliance with quarantine on arrival. If all this is in place then you keep the R number down and you can have an open economy. in fact Taiwan never locked down, the above control were enough.

@thedancingbear no its at all politicians on this thread alone people have been personal , priti got bought into it as well.

Ffs can we just have a discussion about the next phase (I missed it) and not the endless party politics. Tiresome