The UK response to Covid-19 [MOD WARNING 1ST POST]

You mean like Borise's bumbling to press. Even Telegraph were criticising some of his press conferences and the handling of the issues. And Telegraph never critical of him.

If you want European leader handling it well check the numbers of infected and numbers of dead in Germany.

Aegir wrote: »

so it's the Irish in the UK causing the problems?

Your buddy Dominic is advertising for spin merchants. You should apply. It's easier than facing reality.

Aegir wrote: »

I thought Leo’s speech was good and inspiring, but it didn’t tell us much.

It didn't have to, messaging over the past week and more has been clear and consistant. Speech just reinforced the existing message, which is the right way to do it.

You don't keep people in the dark waiting for a major broadcast to dramatically deliver vital health information.

At least they seem to finally have worked out that they need to move faster and harder.

The lack of testing is baffling me though.

Aegir wrote: »

Damned Welsh and their St Patrick’s day parties

Sure, blame the Irish, who cancelled every St. Patricks day event in their own country, and not the woefull responce from the British Government which allowed major events to continue in Britain in the middle of a pandemic. The mind boggles at this level of blinkered thinking.

Why the **** were people holding big parties after it being made very clear that they shouldn’t?

Was it made very clear? I don't think it was.

The Irish government made it very clear that all major events should be cancelled, and all major events were cancelled as a result. What explains the different outcome in the UK? Do you think that the British people are vastly more irresponsible in the face of a clearly communicated public health crisis, or is it perhaps that the British government were just much more inept in getting the message accross?

Aegir wrote: »

Anyone who didn’t get the message obviously missed all U.K. media on Monday and Tuesday.

If anyone went ahead and held St Patrick’s day parties they did it in defiance of the message, not because they were not aware of it.

All west end theatres closed Monday evening, Odeon cinemas, galleries, museums etc. The message was very clear, hence Sunek making his announcement on aid on Tuesday’s briefing.

Too little, too late. St Patrick's Day parades were being cancelled in Ireland two weeks ago. The message from the British Government eventually changed, but the delay will be fatal for many people.

Aegir wrote: »

Don’t forget people were out drinking all over Ireland up until Sunday night.

There seems to be some selective amnesia taking place here.

There are people out drinking all over the UK tonight. There seems to be some selective blindness here!

Aegir wrote: »

There probably is and they are idiots. it will all end by the weekend though.

I said after Boris’s statement last Friday the U.K. was going to see a steady tightening of the screws over the week and so far I’ve been right. That seems to be the feeling from friends and relatives in London as well.

There has been new measures taken pretty much every day this week and this weekend is likely to see a near lockdown in London.

Well done on being right about what the UK is doing, does it not bother you that this approch will cause a great many unnecessary additional deaths?

The WHO has been crystal clear, act early and be agressive. The British approch has not followed this advice.

CelticRambler wrote: »

A "steady tightening of the screws" is the worst possible way to manage an outbreak like this - it does nothing to contain the asymptomatic spreaders and gives contagious people time to prepare their escape from zones of high infection to spread it to previously unaffected areas.

The British government appears to be looking at what Italy did, how that failed to contain the infection, and has decided to do exactly the same ... but with less enthusiasm. There is no excuse for Johnson still to be announcing that he'll introduce new/stricter measures "when the time is right".

But the outbreak also won't be contained by the actions occuring in Ireland, slowed yes but not contained, for example public transport at certain times is still busy and there is no social distancing in effect on Dublin bus, still lots of OAP's out and about.

I think some of the UK's approach is based on fears of social unrest but I also don't think that the people advising the government are idiots and what we have seen the last two days is the timeline simply being accelerated.

An example of this is that things like english local council elections and London mayor elections were a postponed a week ago, actions like that don't worry the type of people that will smash up Foot Locker but are a sign that even a week ago they expected strict restrictions coming

eddie73 wrote: »

How come NI cases are proportionatly lower than here despite our more stringent measures?

They're barely testing as far as I understand

Melanchthon wrote: »

I think some of the UK's approach is based on fears of social unrest but I also don't think that the people advising the government are idiots and what we have seen the last two days is the timeline simply being accelerated.

In fairness, we have seen more than that. It's clear that HMG's attitude had changed because the scientific advice they were relying on changed, and that this happened because the authors came to realise that some of the assumptions on which they had initially constructed their model were not safe or realistic.

All credit to the scientists for being willing to correct themselves and (obviously) expose themselves to some criticism. But it does suggest that those who were sceptical of HMG's initial position and wanted the scientific basis for it critically scrutinised were entirely prudent. Whereas those who displayed a touching childlike faith in Boris Johnson to take the right advice for the right reasons were, um, naive. The more cynical among us suspected that Johnson's instinct would be to take, not the advice that appeared to be most solidly grounded or to represent the widest scientific consensus, but the advice that appeared to support the course of action which, for ideological reasons or reasons of political opportunism, he already wanted to take. And this episode will have done nothing to assuage our cynicism.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Ireland has massively ramped up its testing programme over the past week. This is the right thing to do - intensive testing has been a tool in the armoury of all the countries that have enjoyed better-than-average success in tacking Covid-19 - but one of the inevitable consequences is that, with a time lag of a day or two as tests are processed, there will be a signficant spike in recorded cases. The more testing you do, the more cases you identify, the worse your trajectory looks.

Have heard the north is going to be much more capable in terms of carrying out tests either this week or next week. Ireland has responded a bit quicker but not much more than the UK at this, neither is anywhere close to the levels, don't forget all the mess ups that happened a few weeks ago when it was the time to test.

Melanchthon wrote: »

But the outbreak also won't be contained by the actions occuring in Ireland, slowed yes but not contained, for example public transport at certain times is still busy and there is no social distancing in effect on Dublin bus, still lots of OAP's out and about.

I think some of the UK's approach is based on fears of social unrest but I also don't think that the people advising the government are idiots and what we have seen the last two days is the timeline simply being accelerated.

Where is this fear of social unrest coming from? Can you point to any other country in the world where social unrest has followed the imposition of severe movement restrictions? Here, in France, the natives are very quick to become "unresty" when they feel aggrieved about some suggested minor change to their way of life, but when Macron told everyone to stay at home, they did just that without the least complaint.

Are the British so exceptional that they wouldn't follow such an instruction? Because that flies in the face of Aegir's assertion that the mere suggestion that they keep away from each other is enough for the average Brit - a kind of gentleman's agreement, and understanding that a chap will always do the right thing ... except the country is currently being led by a chap who has shown himself to be quite happy to the do the wrong thing and spit on any gentleman's agreement that causes him inconvenience.

All-in-all, I don't buy the fear of social unrest in Britain as a valid justification for not instigating proper disease control measures. I do think other European countries were unreasonably slow to react, and unreasonably lenient in their initial responses. Even if I respect Macron's decision to lock down the country, I think he was wrong to delay it by 24 hours (I knew about the lockdown 8 hours before he announced it). If the Dept. of Agriculture positively identifies a case of a notifiable animal disease - whether in Ireland, Britain, France or elsewhere in the EU - movement restrictions are put in place immediately, and the elimination teams are mobilised.

Anyone who remembers the Foot-and-Mouth outbreak in the UK back in the 90s, and the piles of carcasses being burnt in fields, should be asking themselves why the British government back then went to such extreme lengths to eliminate a disease that had no implications for human health, yet today's government continues to dither and delay as the dead humans pile up in the HNS ICUs.