For once, I actually agree with Boris

[Racoonworld]

We cannot persist indefinitely with restrictions that have separated families and loved ones for too long, and threatened the livelihoods of millions, and kept pupils out of school.

Finally some sense. So glad this is the message from the government now.

I'm a longstanding Tory voter but I'd lost faith in Johnson. His roadmap yesterday reignited a small amount of faith. I'm so relieved he explicitly said zero covid isn't achievable and there will be more deaths from opening up but it's a balancing act.

There have always been suicides on campus. The clock tower at the University of Birmingham was shut many years ago because they had people jumping off and killing themselves. My older colleague said they had been falling like autumn leaves.

If you walk round the campus of a different very prestigious campus I used to work on there are various flowers placed at certain spots at different times of the year where people have committed suicide. Universities are excellent at hiding bad press.

I was surprised to be very pleased yesterday. It seems like a decent plan and looks at hospitalisations and deaths rather than infection numbers. Good. Now we just need the financial support for the businesses and people who still can't work.

Drakeford has not been afraid to make choices that have made him unpopular. He is a good man who has done his best for the people of Wales. It's a shame people carp about him being dull, I'll take dull over Johnson's blustering, u-turning chaos any day of the week

Yes exactly. All Drakeford needs to do now is massively increase the fines for people travelling to Wales from other countries. Already the number of posters on MN planning on visiting their families or holidaying in Wales is sickening. Just because Boris wants to be popular Wales shouldn’t have to suffer the consequences, especially when we can’t travel for exercise.

Fucking Hell anyone would think there was a GE soon. Oh wait.... !

Boris Johnson has been dreadful throughout all of this. His indecision and lack of leadership is why the death count has been so high.

Agree. He was crap. Not alone in his crapness. But crap all the same. What did anyone expect though? He's no strategist and no leader. He became PM to enrich his ego. That's it.

This "Boris" first name shit is why the people of Britain deserve no better than an idiot visionless populist who "waits to see which way the crowd is walking before running to the front" as it's leader.

@PracticingPerson

This is the only option he has, having fucked it up so badly. He has to brazen it out.

UK, most especially England, will be dealing with the fall out of Johnson's failure to react for years.

If people want to dress this up as a success to make it seems nicer that's up to them, but my view is the UK has been very badly harmed by our dreadful covid response and much of it was his fault.

This.

@travellinglighter

Before we get too excited about Boris actually looking like he might have got something right, let’s look at what he got wrong.

Missed first cobra meeting
Missed second cobra meeting
Missed third, fourth and fifth cobra meeting.
Allowed Cheltenham festival to go ahead.
Allowed Liverpool Madrid game to go ahead.
Twickenham game, ditto
Shaking hands at.twickenham game and catching COVID, possibly still has long COVID.
Late into lockdown against scientific advice
Not enough PPE
Face mask dithering
Corruption in PPE scheme(giving contracts to mates)
Downgrading of virus status to cover lack of PPE.
Insufficient cover for all self employed.
Not extending SSP to those forced to self isolate.
U-turn on SSP.
Removal of elderly infected patients from hospitals to care homes.
Failure to join Eu ventilator scheme
Lying about missing an e-Mail regarding ventilator scheme.
Barnard Castle and Cummings
Failure to sack for Barnard castle.
Allowing Cummings to go on telly and lie about Barnard castle.
Attempted herd immunity policy.
U-turn on herd immunity
Denial of herd immunity policy despite cabinet notes confirming it.
Early release of lockdown (7 weeks instead of 10 weeks).
World class track and trace that neither tracks or traces.
Eat out to help out. More like eat out to infect.
Refusal to consider firebreak.
Ridiculing firebreak
U-turn on firebreak( A month instead of two weeks)
Exams fiasco. DfE refusing to accept teacher gradings.
U-turn on exams fiasco
School meals fiasco
U-turn on school meals fiasco courtesy of Marcus Rashford.
Insisting on uni’s opening
Students retuning for freshers week and holding mass super spreader events.
Locking uni students in halls.
Identifying new strain in September
Not telling anyone about new strain
Not doing anything about new strain
5 Day Christmas holiday.
Refusal to accept scientific evidence against 5 day Christmas holiday.
Late u-turn on 5 day Christmas holiday.
Monumentally late in opening covid isolation hotels.
Tory donors, peers and family members cramming their pockets full of government cash for PPE, PR contracts and anything they can get away with.
General communications policy that looks like it was made up on the spot and sometimes actually was.
Failure to brush hair on almost every occasion.

Combine that with the highest death rate per head of population and the deepest recession (which might be due to an awful Brexit deal which he negotiated) then one decent press conference is hardly enough to change my opinion.

This.

Worst death rate and, last year, the biggest hit of any major economy.

We're setting the bar rather low if that starts being called "success", but when the narrative is set by the 80% Tory media I expect that's how history will be written.

How can you say they have?

And he's taking a massive risk with the vaccines too. He's a high stakes gambler, who apparently has to have things written 'in short sentences' because he doesn't understand.

Taking a massive risk? Have you not read any of the data or studies that have come out about prolonging the intervals between dose one and two?

Boris has been the voice of reason.

He's a high stakes gambler, who apparently has to have things written 'in short sentences' because he doesn't understand.

Also, this is rather ironic coming from a poster called @PracticingPerson. Hint: it’s practiSing.

[quote OldScrappyAndHungry]@BritWifeinUSA sadly America’s freedom of movement during this pandemic has cost half a million lives so I’m not sure we should have been following their lead.

Protecting our hospitals really was an absolute priority - if we had unlimited beds and staff maybe we could have allowed the virus to rip through the population unchecked, but it was never really a realistic option.

It’s been a horrendous year but the end is in sight.[/quote]
We have more deaths per million people than the USA.

It’s easy to beat the USA, but Gibraltar is the worst affected country in the world.

@Ikora

Absolutely, I used to work at a Uni not too far from Birmingham in the welfare department. We had students jumping off high rise accommodation blocks every single year. It’s nothing new sadly.

@Dongdingdong

"Also, this is rather ironic coming from a poster called @PracticingPerson. Hint: it’s practiSing"

Not if you are using US English - IE 80% of the English speaking world.

Not if you are using US English - IE 80% of the English speaking world.

Oh - is that poster American then? If so I take it back.

@User133847

"I've just been shaking hands with covid patients, Hur Hur Hur"

Yeah voice of reason.

You can’t compare us to other countries, we are densely populated and we are recording all covid deaths including ones that die within 28 days of a test even if it’s something else that gets them!

I do t believe for a second China and other countries are reporting their deaths properly.

We cannot persist indefinitely with restrictions that have separated families and loved ones for too long, and threatened the livelihoods of millions, and kept pupils out of school

Some of us have realised this for months and it's just a shame it's taken government so long for the truth to dawn (if it actually has)

Still, better late than never as they say

Some of us have realised this for months and it's just a shame it's taken government so long for the truth to dawn (if it actually has)

I don’t think public pressure would have allowed them to not lock down.

[quote Cam77]@User133847

"I've just been shaking hands with covid patients, Hur Hur Hur"

Yeah voice of reason.[/quote]
He got vaccinated early on. It was a genius move.

God knows how many times he’d have contracted it by now.

@Doomsdayiscoming presumably he still has a functioning immune system so the answer is once. Reinfection with Covid 19 isn't common www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4961

To be fair Boris did lead the way in world leaders contracting Covid! Although not so good he ended up in ICU.
Have Most world leaders had it now? Macron, Trump have obviously have, plenty of ministers too. I don’t think Merkel ever got it though?
Covid going through whitty, Hancock, valance etc early on was maybe a blessing in disguise as they were able to keep working without that anxiety ( yes I know we weren’t sure you got some immunity but there was a very good chance)

@Dongdingdong

And he's taking a massive risk with the vaccines too. He's a high stakes gambler, who apparently has to have things written 'in short sentences' because he doesn't understand.

Taking a massive risk? Have you not read any of the data or studies that have come out about prolonging the intervals between dose one and two?

The gamble was in putting all his faith in vaccines and herd immunity plus when Tony Blair first suggested a one dose strategy, ministers and scientists poo hooed it rubbish.

Its worked out but make no mistake, his govt and most of the 'west has handled CV terribly, the UK especially so with a govt that didn't take CV seriously last spring and then went from dither and delay as we went into winter allowing the kent variant to appear.
(i.e schools safe back for one day/schools a hotbed of infection the next)

imho Herd Immunity was always the plan, together with a media that would help them excuse the deaths.

I remember a sentence out of a thriller i once read "he didn't care about the 83,000 people who would die, he just didn't want to be associated with their deaths"

[quote GiveMeNovocain]@Doomsdayiscoming presumably he still has a functioning immune system so the answer is once. Reinfection with Covid 19 isn't common www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4961[/quote]
The inference was “..by now...if reinfection was common”.

I am saying by contracting it early, he avoided it getting it subsequently, ie exactly your point.