Notwithstanding that fact that the Govt HAVE got many things wrong...

If you actually explain to the people why it was needed, instead of waffle then you can take people with you. That's the job of the government and the PM. We're still to see the science being followed. Again how many times have we been lies to or been treated like mushrooms?
The lockdown lacks any proper laws so it lacked bite from the beginning. It's been a shambles and continues to be so.

 

Didn't realise you live outside the UK, you never mention it.

 

Just closing the pubs and locking down on the Friday instead of the Monday would have saved *at least* 4000 lives. That dither and delay and not wanting to be the bad guy saw at least that many people exposed and infected who would otherwise have survived. Many of us saw what happened in Italy, France, Spain and then here with horror. And the worst thing is, the quicker you lock down, the easier it is to unlock. Think of a care accelerating down the road - hit the brakes at 20 and you stop in 12m. Hit the brakes at 70 and its 96m. Lockdown with 1000 cases and you can reopen in 2-3 weeks, delay 2 weeks and lockdown with 100000 (currently estimates have more than that in UK) and it takes months to get to manageable levels.

The worst thing is, we didn't need to lockdown on March 13, we did need to quarantine incoming arrivals from areas with high infection rates from early February though and probably even late January.

I am biased in my views. My biology education was stopped at 14 by school due to the options available. I do however have lots of experience of a different type of pandemic - computer viruses and dealing with the aftermath. Lots of similarities - they spread fast, cause considerable damage (both time and money) and and difficult to prevent/eradicate - but we do, regularly - Wannacry, Stuxnet, MyDoom, Storm Worm, Anna Kournikova, etc, etc - several every year with some a lot worse than others. The treatment is the same too - stop it getting in (firewalls = customs borders), but if it gets in isolate, treat (antivirus software = medical treatment) and in worse cases put in ICU or wipe completely to rebuild (effectively death of the computer or person). You have to be proactive, you have to stop it in its tracks, you have to act fast. In a matter of hours you can go from 1-2 infected machines to every computer in the company and the business is effectively out of action - companies have gone to the wall as a result.

 

Friends of mine went to New Zealand for 6 weeks in the height of the Chinese flare up. They travelled back via Singapore. They weren't even quarantined.

 

Tbf we haven't been privy to a lot of data the government have, yet anyone with a brain can see what other countries did who had the misfortune to be ahead of us when the disease started spreading. I honestly believe the govt was initially prepared to do nothing other than to tell us to wash our hands and to go down the herd immunity route and then panicked.

 

All very valid, which I completely understand.

I think the difference here is that your computer will do EXACTLY what you tell it to do, WHEN you tell it to do it. The British public would not - was my only point.

 

Just concentrating on the lockdown date, for many it wasn't hindsight, it was "why are we not locking down like other countries?". The Government claimed they were following the science and had ideas that locking down too early would lead to a breakdown whilst the pandemic raged. Watching Italy and Spain's fatalities climb whilst we carried on in our exceptional way. We are one of the World's biggest aviation hubs and yet the delay in locking down continued. Like watching a leaking dam and getting the deckchairs out while you ponder what to do. All the other missteps, cockups and general incompetence have since come to light and been commented on. You don't need to be a scientist to understand that viruses spread like wildfire through populated areas.

 

The problem is that we have never been "told" to do anything (apart from closing pubs etc), we have just been "advised" not to do things....big difference psychologically.

 

Wrong post highlighted ,SORRY

 

Having a whinge at people whinging ?

 

No hindsight bias at all . This govt had hindsight with what was happening in China and the country you keep bragging about living in .
This was hindsight and people were warning the govt even then .
To keep citing hindsight at something that was obvious is a get out clause they had hindsight and the govt were negligible because they had the foresight but not the will .
People are blaming this govt because they have cost the lives of loved ones , because they have cost livelihoods by having to close longer than they should have had to .
To accuse people of blaming the govt because of hindsight is arrogant at best .
The govts had hindsight and were warned and chose to ignore and have cost lives .
#guiltyasfuck

 

Very strange post, there were loads of us saying we should lock down earlier than we did.

 

I think you're right in that people all over the internet and the papers have gone in hard on the "It was obvious all along" story - in reality it was unclear what was going on for a long time to most people. But I'd say it became clear to the world and the government then ignored it for weeks.I think the handling of care homes has been a shambles too so can't agree with you there.

I think your thread was deliberately worded so as to avoid discussing the specific mistakes the government made, and rather a point about this hindsight problem - and in that sense I agre with you, to an extent.

Some people called it beforehand, fair play, but who knew for certain back then?

 

Err . The WHO were warning countries since January ,
Lots of countries locked down at the time and escaped the large number of infections .
I can only suggest to come to this conclusion you were in complete isolation before most of us .

 

I'm not trying to start a flame war Marlon, and I'm not sure how you've come to this conclusion from what I posted.

Did the WHO say "lockdown now" back then? As far as I was aware there were warnings about a quickly spreading deadly virus, but it would have seemed early to completely lock down then. Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.

This wasn't the point I was trying to make anyway. The government have done a shocking job since the point where it became clear to everyone that action needed to be taken. The "it was obvious months before" angle from a bunch of journalists is unnecessary in my opinion - there's plenty to criticise them for without resorting to it!

 

Translates to

"Ignoring all the stuff the government got disastorously wrong, im going to pick around the edges of the subject and vaguely highlight things posters on here have said as an attempt to prove you're all a bit whingy and the government is ok"

And yes, you're right, you dont live here. Jog on.

 

I think it's possible to identify some hindsight bias in journalism (I know he's talking about the BBS, but I'm not) without sayingit excuses the government for any of their many terrible mistakes

Where I do disagree with Tekkytyke is that there's an anti-gov rhetoric. I think it's legitamate criticism based on a decade of increasingly terrible governments

 

No the WHO don’t tell countries their policies it’s up to countries to lockdown and ours chose not to lockdown which was the wrong approach .
The journalists are accusing the govt of not locking down not because the govt didn’t know because they most certainly did but because they ignored the warnings ,
If you think the govts didn’t know I think your infos wrong because other countries had locked down well before us .
There were calls from opposition party’s to lock down two weeks before we did , Boris dancing round hospitals , Cheltenham, etc etc

 

I have posted this before:

GENEVA, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday spoke highly of China's effective control measures to combat the novel coronavirus outbreak, and called on all countries to invest in preparedness, not panic to manage the epidemic.

Addressing the 146th session of the WHO Executive Board meeting that kicked off here on Monday, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said China "take serious measures at the epicenter, at the source," which not only protected Chinese people, but also prevented the spread of the virus to other countries.

"Because of this strategy, if it weren't for China's efforts, the number of cases outside China would have been very much higher," he said.

Outside China, he said there are 146 confirmed cases in 23 countries. "It's actually small, and it's coming only slow ... So it can be managed," Tedros said.

Tedros called on all countries to implement decisions that are evidence-based and consistent, and said that the vital importance for all countries is to invest in preparedness, not panic.

WHO has made recommendations that there is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade.

Does the above sound like the WHO are advocating anything near a lockdown in January?

 

I didn’t say they were advocating lockdown , they were warning about the virus the decision to lockdown was govts decisions .
Lockdown was advocated by warnings from other countries to do so and from within our own country politicians , journalists etc . Other countries had already done so and averted the scenarios in Spain and Italy we could and didn’t .