Covid response one of UK’s worst ever public health failures according to a report by MPs.

[Zotter]

Sorry if this has been posted already, but couldn’t see a post about it.

A report by MPs headed by two former Conservative govt ministers came out today which says the covid response is one of UK’s worst ever public health failures.

Guardian write about it here www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/oct/12/covid-response-one-of-uks-worst-ever-public-health-failures?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

A further Guardian article writes: ‘the failure to prevent tens of thousands of deaths during Britain’s brutal second wave of Covid infections was a more serious error than the timing of the first lockdown, senior scientists have told the Guardian, after a damning report by MPs on the handling of the pandemic. www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/12/the-real-problem-is-the-repetition-of-mistakes-scientists-react-to-covid-enquiry?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

BBC have written an analysis on the report here www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58890472

When the U.K. is 2nd for detected cases in the world over the last 7 days, and 12th for deaths over the last seven days I don't think anyone needs context.

The U.K. is very firmly at the worst end of the table.

Still.

After 21 months

And pretty much always has been in the worst half of the table across all the metrics any time I've ever checked.

Remember September 21st 2020 when lots of people were shocked at the very idea expressed by Whitty and Vallance in their "Graph of Doom" that we could be back at 200 deaths a day by November 2020?

We might be back there by November 2021 too.

I was expecting this thread to be much more active and popular, had to come to the board specifically to find it. It’s such a huge headline.

@BakeOffRewatch

I was expecting this thread to be much more active and popular, had to come to the board specifically to find it. It’s such a huge headline.

I suspect that the lack of reaction is because none of it is really news - we all knew all along, and didn't need the enquiry to tell us.

The bizarre part of it is that none of it seems to dent Boris Johnson's popularity in the slightest.

@PrincessNutNuts

Remember September 21st 2020 when lots of people were shocked at the very idea expressed by Whitty and Vallance in their "Graph of Doom" that we could be back at 200 deaths a day by November 2020?

We might be back there by November 2021 too.

Nothing like misquoting data to make your case is there? Tuesday is always a high day because lots of deaths don't get reported over the weekend. The figure you're showing here is the number of deaths reported yesterday, not the number of people who died yesterday. If you look at the graph of the day they actually happened, you can clearly see that numbers are coming down and in fact haven't been above 100 since the beginning of October.

As a balance I would also like to see an in-depth report as to the harms of lockdown. That has also been disastrous for so many people too. And I think there’s lots more harms that we are unaware off yet to be revealed. I’m thinking domestic violence, effect on young people with regards their education in particular but really the list is long.
The report gives the impression lockdown is a wholly positive act and the week delay was a wholly bad thing when it is actually hugely harmful to lots of people for lots of different reasons.

"Nothing's changed. Another thread right now is full of the 'what else can we do', 'we're not doing any different to other countries', etc fatalism and denial described in the report."

Yep. What we are currently doing to school communities is awful. Normalising the number of deaths too.

@peewitsandy

The biggest scandal was of course sending elderly patients with Covid in to care homes without the correct or any PPE. How many lives would have been saved if Hancock, Whitty and Valance had actually ensured there was a ring of steel around the care homes.

I know elderly patients are still being sent home, even with Covid, and a personal situation I know off.

The, failure of the Hospital concerned to send a elderly female patient home with Covid despite her entering hospital for a non Covid reason. This, botch up has directly led to the death of both her and her husband in the spate of 12 days.
This happened in the North East in the last month.

Maybe, there is some kind of evil 'assisted' dying system going on in our NHS Hospitals .

The NHS has a lot to answer for. My OH has blood cell cancer (highest risk for covid) and after several phone consultations to discuss his condition, restarting treatment (after it was cancelled due to covid), the consultant suddenly decided she needed to see him face to face. So we turned up, the waiting room (basically a corner of a corridor) was jam packed with people, as it was the same waiting area for the blood tests, so there were people coming and going constantly, no room/space for social distancing, no ventilation, etc. We sat there for two hours waiting for the consultant. When we finally saw her, it was just to sign the paperwork to authorise the chemotherapy treatment - could have been done by post, or anywhere else. So basically she put my OH at great risk of covid just for a bit of paperwork, after discussing treatments etc (complicated) by phone calls previously.

Then when treatment started, he had to keep "reminding" the nurses to change their gloves, wipe down equipment, etc as they moved from patient to patient in the day room whilst they were all having chemotherapy. Nor did they wipe down chairs between patients. Remember this is chemotherapy treatment for cancer patients, i.e. some of the highest risk patients.

@sashagabadon

As a balance I would also like to see an in-depth report as to the harms of lockdown. That has also been disastrous for so many people too. And I think there’s lots more harms that we are unaware off yet to be revealed. I’m thinking domestic violence, effect on young people with regards their education in particular but really the list is long. The report gives the impression lockdown is a wholly positive act and the week delay was a wholly bad thing when it is actually hugely harmful to lots of people for lots of different reasons.

I agree, but I see the financial disaster, i.e. the people who've lost their jobs, their businesses, their homes, etc., and a few people who committed suicide because they were financially crippled by the lockdowns, etc,.

We desperately need an enquiry into Rishi's "scattergun" approach to covid support, whereby some people got money thrown at them that they didn't need, yet others were excluded for the flimsiest of reasons, not to mention the billions lost due to fraud where fraudsters made claims for bounce back loans etc pretending they were businesses but no checks were done to prove they were eligible!

@Bunsnbobbins

The death figure is massaged to only include those in last 28 days.

To compare with other countries, you need to use the reported number of deaths by those certified on the death certificate.

161,798

That's death "with" covid, not death "from" covid.

The harms caused by lockdowns have been incalculable, and will still be becoming known for some time. We seem to have had the worst of both worlds.

@Megistotherium - I shudder to think what bad looks like to you.

@luckylavender
Actually I feel numb and being slightly sarcastic tbh.
I'm not British and compared to my own country, what's happened here is terrible. But I chose to live here and I try not to blame the government who I have no vote for. In my mind, could have been worse is the words I thought about to make it through.

all mrshoho the vaccine intake is currently 1 in ten for that age group.

The thing is you never know how good or bad other government would have done. See the mess in the US with Biden who sold him himself as the Covid saviour and unifier of the country.

@Bunsnbobbins

The death figure is massaged to only include those in last 28 days.

To compare with other countries, you need to use the reported number of deaths by those certified on the death certificate.

161,798

There are huge issues with country comparison data, due to differences in testing, the way deaths are recorded etc. The UK records, for statistical purposes of Covid deaths that any death within 28 days of a positive test is a Covid death, even if that person died in a car crash. Death certificates record a cause of death, but in many cases, with the demographic profile of the deaths what would have been flu or pneumonia in previous years was Covid over the last 18 months. Some cases might state Covid when it was the thing that pushed someone over the edge who was suffering from end stage terminal cancer etc.

The only real comparison that works with cross country comparison is the excess deaths figure. Data on that paints a slightly different picture.

www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker (possibly paywalled).

ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Excess_mortality_-_statistics

The government seem to be excusing themselves with all the 'with the benefit of hindsight' crap, but anyone could see what was happening in China in January and in Italy and France in February.
Since the UK was letting unrestricted to and from Italy, France, Spain etc while these countries were locking down etc, who in their right mind didn't think this would also happen in the UK?
The government only get away with these excuses because so many of their voters can't see beyond the borders of the UK.

Also, what a coincidence BJohnson is on his holidays the week this report came out so doesn't have to comment or face any questions.

*unrestricted travel

The government really cannot use hindsight as an excuse, particularly with the second wave. Local authorities were ignored where dismissed when attempting to control the escalating cases. The schools debacle before and after the Christmas break - Schools and LAs threatened with legal action by DFE and then a day later they had to take the drastic action themselves! I hope that is included when it comes to an inquiry.

@fournonblondes

The thing is you never know how good or bad other government would have done. See the mess in the US with Biden who sold him himself as the Covid saviour and unifier of the country.

Biden inherited a huge iceberg of undetected covid spread created by the previous administration's lies and negligence. That's an insurmountable task.

He's also inherited a tsunami of covid misinformation and disinformation.

I've come to the conclusion that the grip of covid minimisers, on the national conversation is possibly a better predictor of covid strategy success than resources or advance warning or preparedness.

The countries who don't give such bullshit the time of day handle covid so much better than those who embrace the lazy, negative, defeatist covid-minimiser bullshit and make it policy.

@fournonblondes

The thing is you never know how good or bad other government would have done. See the mess in the US with Biden who sold him himself as the Covid saviour and unifier of the country.

I firmly believe that if Rory Stewart had been Prime Minister 100,000 more British people would still be alive.

He understood the situation and genuinely seemed to care that British people were dying unnecessarily of a preventable disease.

He'd still have had the sizeable chunk of the Conservative party to deal with who didn't understand the situation and don't care if British people die, but his basic competency and work ethic would have led to a dramatically improved result in my opinion.

Better government leads to a better plan which leads to better results.

And no way would he have made all the same mistakes in the second wave and killed another 75,000 British people.

Yep, this report is stating the absolutely obvious.

We knew they caused many deaths then, and they are continuing to cause many deaths now, including of state school children. Hospital admissions of children higher than at any other time in the pandemic.
The private schools near us have all closed and gone online, but we're expected to just keep sending our kids in without masks to covid infection zones, because of the DfE. 12-15 year olds could have been mostly vaccinated over the summer.

It's appalling. Why people are just putting up with it I don't know. They couldn't be more clearly stating they don't care if anyone who's not in the 1% dies. And it's not just covid it's everything else too.

@sashagabadon

As a balance I would also like to see an in-depth report as to the harms of lockdown. That has also been disastrous for so many people too. And I think there’s lots more harms that we are unaware off yet to be revealed. I’m thinking domestic violence, effect on young people with regards their education in particular but really the list is long. The report gives the impression lockdown is a wholly positive act and the week delay was a wholly bad thing when it is actually hugely harmful to lots of people for lots of different reasons.

Lockdowns aren't some kind of counterpoint to government covid strategy.

Lockdowns ARE government covid strategy.

That's why I always expect another one.

@PrincessNutNuts
The government's Covid strategy is largely over now. It evolved into vaccinate the majority and then see that as job done, which is something we are nearly finished on.

I do not think there will be another lockdown because it goes against the right of the Conservative party and the reality is that if, with majority vaccination we cannot "learn to live with the virus", then we will never be able to.

I agreed with the first, I agreed with the second, the third lockdown going on as long as it did was of limited value and in the third lockdown the balance of the negative consequences of the lockdown outweighed the benefits of the lockdown. For any fourth lockdown the consequences of the lockdown will be far worse than the benefits. I can't see the majority of the public supporting a fourth lockdown, or following it if imposed.

Government policy is what it always was.

Lie, minimise, obfuscate.

Actively do things that make the situation worse.

Keep that up until the very brink of UK infrastructure collapse,

Then impose a lockdown.

That's one of the key problems with the U.K. government's covid response.

Most of their covid response creates the conditions to cause the next lockdown.

It always takes a few months so they think they're getting away with it, but then...