Boris Press conference

Irrational and emotional.
Explain this to me. The odds of a child currently having coronavirus are low. Closing schools for two weeks is likely to maintain that. Tell me how keeping them in school is going to match that. It's utter nonsense. The odds are hugely greater that they'll contract it and bring it home. My health as a 60 year old looking after a schoolkid who is highly likely healthy is much better protected than if she was in school. You crack on thinking the majority of other countries have got it wrong though.

 

And you crack on thinking you know better than the scientists and medics who devised this plan. We're not saying we know better, we're saying that listening to the advice of the experts who were paid to give that advice seems like a sensible option. Listening to someone on a football message board getting all emotional and telling us all they're wrong - not so much.

 

I broadly agree with the action taken so far. It gives room for the restrictions to be escalated and for them to be adhered for a period of time. If the jump was taken now then after a couple of weeks of imposition I suggest that human nature would intervene and an element of the population would revert to normal behaviour.

Elephant in the room to me though is in the capital. A dense concentration of people in a confined space without even adequate ventilation. The London underground at rush hour. I apreciate that all public transport has similar issues but the underground at five million journeys a day seems to stand out.

 

They didn't - politicians did.
The advisers advise, politicians took that advice on board and come up with a plan that the advisers 'agree' whether they believe it's the best plan or not.

 

Of course it makes sense to listen to experts. But all these other nations taking further measures have their own experts who, by the way, have a lot more evidence regarding this virus than us. Is it another case of us thinking we know best, as per usual? Even states in America are closing schools now.

The point is that yes, children are relatively low risk to this, however schools can still be become transmission centres. A child might pick it up from a parent, who passes it on to 5 or 6 kids at school. They go home and deliver it to others. This is not social distancing. Kids around my way 'play out' with perhaps 2 or 3 others on the street. Half of them sit indoors on their Playstations anyway. Or at the very least they should be closing colleges and universities where younger people are able to look after themselves. And while there are no restrictions on visiting care homes etc, every day that goes by without any action we are going to pay for in a few weeks.

Also, what about the teaching staff? Is their health not important?

China put things in lockdown really early. They are on top of it now. Other nations who did the same are containing it. It's the only way to let it die out.

I honestly only have the best interests of everyone at heart. Sitting back and just accepting a lot of people are going to become ill just isn't my way of thinking. And it's not fair. I don't know why the people of this country just sit back and take it like we do.

 

The Italian virologist on 5live last night was saying you need to be in contact with someone for extended periods, so evidence suggesting subways arent as bad as you would think.

 

Exactly. They stopped it spreading to the huge cities in China. It's in London. It's in Manchester. Look at northern Italy. Europe will get it far worse than Asia. There's no way it can be contained and there is no way the NHS will cope. Time to wind everything down for 6 months.

 

Similar to Piers Morgan on Twitter. Constantly updating on other countries actions, and how bad everything is becoming. The hypocrite still took his daughter to the Arsenal game recently, surrounded by 60,000 others.

 

So do you believe that Johnson is going against the Chief Medical Officer's advice and that they are complicit in this and happy to not kick off and go along with it?

 

Last time I was on the tube a was squashed against someone for a period of around 20 minutes. I feel that the virus would be transmitted by that level of close proximity.

 

It's the CMO's job to advise on medical matters - there are other considerations to be made by politicians, this isn't black and white. The CMO isn't in charge here the PM is.

We'll have to wait years to find out what advice was given and how decisions were made - but it should be obvious that there are huge political considerations, it's not simply a case of 'following advice from doctors'.

 

It remains to be seen what happens when China lift the restrictions (if they do)

 

You can't do that though. The effect on the country would be devastating and felt for years to come. This is a very difficult balancing act between over reaction and ensuring that public health is safeguarded. I'm glad I'm not making the choices.

 

So if it is as complex as you believe (i agree by the way) why are you getting so wound up about it? I don't get it. You appear to be inferring that the PM is doing something wrong and getting really angry with people in this thread but won't pin your colours to the mast and say exactly what.

 

Hence the number of times I used the word "me"

 

What makes you think I'm wound up? I thought I was simply taking place in a discussion - where I was challenging the idea that we can trust our PM because he's 'doing what the experts have advised'.

If politicians simply acted on the advice of experts, the country would be run by civil servants and there'd never be a political shift. The obvious truth is that the country is run by politicians and the advisors follow the civil service code which is to advise and formulate policy based on the whims of government.

 

But what you're missing is the press conference was delivered by the experts not the prime minister or any other politician. Those experts were not swayed politically. Even when Boris took questions, a man I don't like by the way, he referred it to the experts. Of course there are other things to consider but as this thread is about the press conference I thought it better to refer to what we actually saw and heard and who delivered it. No one has said medical and scientific experts made a decision. Not one person. They said they advised. That advice was taken. I don't understand what you're trying to argue about.

 

Why are our experts correct and other countries' wrong? We normally love talking up other countries and putting ourselves down.

 

People are trying to make this a political thing. Jeremy Hunt jumping at the opportunity.

I'm no expert but thought what the chief scientist outlined, made perfect sense. Shutting schools won't work, because they will all be out playing with each other. As for banning events, all that will happen is that once they restart, it will then spread like wildfire again.

 

The term / medical practice of Herd Immunity was used this morning. This would involve exposing a minimum of 60% of the population to it, in a hope the general population builds up a natural immunity to it.
It polarises opinion in medical circles, eugenics and social science is open to interpretation (like most scientific measures) . In most case studies of herd immunity it is estimated that between 5%-10% of population would perish or be affected long term by a virus. Some reports are higher and some slightly lower.

We can't totally stop this virus in the short term, but I've read reports that Israel could be close to having a potential vaccine in place. So surely isolation is the way to go in the short term and get the vaccine ready for those in dire need.

I do wonder what other countries are being told.