Which has been harmed most?

Never said I was proud or anything I’m just saying that’s what I did that was my choice that was my family’s choice my daughter has severe mental health problems and as I work away from home for long periods at a time my wife was on her own and my daughter was losing her huge support unit and she would have deteriorated badly as she lost school so we made the decision to carry on as normal on my weekends off we went to seaside visited grandparents as my daughters well being was far more important than some rules set by suits in London..

 

Or possibly booked it well before the pandemic even started..

 

NO I havent.

I'

No I havent my life is in limbo after I lost my job.

And theres no new ones

 

All the singers I

My world doesnt look like this.

My favourite singers arent doing any gig until autumn.

I've not been able to attend a football match since March 7 2020

I never holiday in Britain and I havent been abroad since 2019.


Honestly I would feel much happier with these things back. Im not that bothered about anything else.

 

My background is mostly in travel + tourism

 

I guess the vaccines just materialised out of thin air did they?

The whole of the UK has benefitted greatly from the vaccine procurement programme led by central government. England, Scotland, Wales and NI would all have been well down the shitter about now if we’d haven been as slow at procuring vaccines as, say, the EU. The EU only have 24% of people fully vaccinated and have given as many first doses as the UK had given first doses on 26th March (as a % of the population). When the delta variant inevitably becomes dominant across the EU in 2-3 weeks time and cases start to take off again, what does that mean for their reopening if they’re nearly 3 months behind us with their vaccination programmes? They won’t be fully reopening on 19 July, thats for sure.

The NHS has done a great job getting the jabs into arms as soon as they’re available, but most other major countries’ have been able to do the same. The reason we’re ahead in the vaccination programme is not because the NHS is so much quicker at administering the vaccines once they arrive than other countries’ health services, it’s been securing deliveries of the vaccines and manufacturing capabilities in the first place. I know it doesn’t suit the narrative, and unfortunately Nicola has had little to do with it, but a large proportion of the credit should go to central government and the vaccines taskforce.

 

What you say about vaccine procurement is perfectly correct but let’s be clear, it’s the only thing that they have got right in this whole sorry saga. From PPE to track and trace every thing else has been an utter disaster, culminating in yet again failing to act quickly enough in red listing India. This last failure is now undermining the benefit we were so close to getting from the one success of vaccine procurement. Also I think you are being somewhat disingenuous to the NHS vaccine roll out. With one or two exceptions such as lsrael most other major countries were ponderously slow with vaccinations in the first months of the year.

 

My brother and his missis to be are getting married at a hotel by Lake Windermere in December with the honeymoon in York straight after. To avoid the stress of wondering how many people they can have it's just going to be them 2 with a trip on the lake and other goodies . Celebration booked for February for family and friends but being a Millers fan he's only gone and booked it at the New York Stadium Could have been worse, could have been S6

 

I think you're doing the NHS a massive disservice there.

 

The only reason the govt didn’t **** that up is because it’s too specialist to ship out to a dodgy relative of Hancock’s.

 

Yeah it’s a bit ****. Football would always be close season though wouldn’t end and there’s no reason to think you won’t be able to attend in August. Least there’s the Euros.

Touring is a lottery and there’s a build up of cancellations but on the flip there’s a lot of bands which will tour probably more than usual in the next few years and plenty of festivals to go to.

Completely. Empathise about travel. I love it and I miss it. worse for you if you worked it in. To an extent for that we need to convince other countries we are ‘safe’ just as they do for us. So just see this as as stepping stone to that.

Of those 3 activities you can definitely do 2 now. You could even look at the U.K. for travel. I’m off to Scotland for 3 weeks. Other than a weekend I’ve never been. It might be great it might be crap. Just like any other form of travel.

 

The horrible lot in government who pre ordered millions of doses of the vaccine

 

Pretty sure it's easier to buy the vaccines than work out the logistical nightmare of getting those vaccines into the population.

Overall, the government has worsened the pandemic through decimating infrastructure in the years leading up to covid and then through lack of action during covid.

The only shining lights throughout this entire sorry debacle have been the NHS and other low paid frontline workers who've provided necessary services. Don't you dare paint this government as a success.

 

While I have every sympathy with the doctors and nurses of the NHS who have had a terrible time and I have the upmost respect for their efforts and commitment I think it's wrong to say that the NHS has been a shining light over the past year (though I think you were referring to the staff in which case you are absolutely correct). It has frankly performed appallingly with many people dying, having their lives shortened or simply having other ailments that could have been cured turned into a permanent lifelong issue completely needlessly because the NHS couldn't cope and went from a national health service to a covid service. Heart patients, cancer patients etc denied treatment (except the very lucky ones).
As for the covid response itself, well again the effort of he staff is clear for all to see, it can't be faulted, but the results have been terrible with thousands of people dying because they caught covid in the hospital.

The NHS has performed so badly BUT this isn't a criticism of the NHS because it could only ever perform badly given the constant budget cuts, attempts at privatisation and basically meddling that the tories have forced upon it over the years. It was given no chance to do anything but fail in a situation like this and it has done. The shining light is the doctors, nurses and other staff who haven't given up at all despite the cutbacks.

The government should be ashamed of its treatment of the nhs

 

Just picking up on shining lights. The people for us who have been the most incredible through the last 15ish months have been couriers and delivery drivers, and prior to that the small local businesses who pivoted their entire business models to help people and get food to those who couldn't go out safely to get it.

Huge admiration for them and what they've been doing and the way they've been doing it. Respect.

 

I’m not defending other aspects of the government response. I think they’ve got a lot wrong, some of which has been their fault and some of which has been due to the advice they received. However, I will correct blatant misrepresentations.

It’s true that some countries did have relatively large stockpiles early on, and should have been quicker at getting jabs into arms once the vaccines arrived (not so much now).

However, that wasn’t the fault of the healthcare systems in those countries - there were huge vaccination centres set up and ready to go, with doctors and nurses sat twiddling their thumbs with no one to jab. A key reason for the delay was vaccine hesitancy, particularly in relation to the AZ vaccine. Very few people were coming forwards for the jab, not helped by the likes of Macron calling it quasi-ineffective in the over 65s. I don’t think it’s fair to blame other countries healthcare systems for that, and that the doctors, nurses and healthcare leaders have done as much as they could in their respective countries’ rollout.

 

I totally agree re the underfunding of the NHS however from communist China to Donald Trump’s USA there wasn’t any country prepared for what happened last year to the degree that their routine health provision was unaffected. But yes we could have started from a much stronger position than we did. We could have had a prepared plan for a pandemic for starters. What I find utterly shameful is that even now after all that as happened the tories are still ahead in the opinion polls. What an indictment of the Labour Party that is.

 

I fear you read the daily mail on line too much