When did Boris become the messiah

[Randy]

Randy, that assumption is nonsense. with a 1% mortality rate we would have 35 million dead, with just a 0.1% mortality rate we would have 3.5 million dead. Think before you post fella.

Why is it nonsense? When did countries actively start testing people who have already died for coronavirus? Who's to say that a man in America for example who died from pneumonia in December was or wasn't carrying coronavirus without a post mortem test?
How do you know you or I haven't already had it as some cases can be asymptomatic, some can be similar to a mild cold? How do you know that cold you had in January wasn't coronavirus? Some cases take a week to start showing symptoms, how many carriers of it from the China region travelled around the world before it really kicked off on January?

 

[Duke]

Duke,

Herd immunity was mentioned, as a method of everyone getting it, so that it no longer spreads at the same rate and so we can get the economy going again. The way they were talking about this was very different to the rest of the world, and they were looking short term to get the economy going again. That's why a load of people were saying "why are we not doing what those that are dealing with this are suggesting?", "why the fcuck are the pubs open", "why is cheltenham still on" etc. The other countries that were ahead of us were calling us "fcuking crazy" for not already being in lock down, with having the extra notice.
It was blindingly obvious this was not a 2-3 year heard immunity plan, like getting some immunity from "normal" flu.

The government chose where they get their information from, and they chose the wrong place, that's the fact of it. They chose a different plan to what the rest of the world that was ahead of us were saying. Test, test, test and lockdown. They were even saying "why haven't you locked down yet?"
They either:
Chose a different plan, which is costing peoples lives
They are ignoring their own good advice to save the economy, at the expense of peoples lives
They are implementing bad advice, which is costing peoples lives

What they should have done is:
Implement WHO advice, test, test, test and lock down at worst, a point equal to where we are on the curve, so at least about two weeks earlier than we did

I'm not even saying that the Cummins thing was true, but he's a proven to$$er who manipulates. I 100% think he is capable of sacrificing some lives to save the economy, as that's how someone like him thinks. It works for winning elections, when you look at people like numbers, and sacrifice the votes of certain groups to target others, but when it's people the number at the end is real dead people.

You seem to assume that we took note of all the good advice and implemented it for the good of public health, and yet ignored the bad advice at the benefit of public health. Your're living in a dream land and every graph and statistic proves it.

If we're not performing better than Italy and Spain, with more notice then we're doing a worse job, a lot worse, seeing how everyone pretty much knew that cases would treble every three days with no lock-down. So to do worse we've either picked bad advice or picked good advice and ignored it, I think we've done both.

Wev,

If you are interested in knowing where the ideas come from, read the influenza pandemic preparedness strategy, that's what set their initial timetable on closing pubs, borders and public gatherings, part of it was protecting the economy yes and by the same factor, protecting society. All countries factored this into their response, it's not some evil Tory creation, but if you have no interest in reading the actual independent strategy reports that were made before Bojo and co got close to office, what's the point? You ensuring that you remain ignorant of all of the factors and context here. Not making people homeless, unable to pay their bills etc is something that needs to be considered alongside protecting lifes, there's a myriad of variables involved.

The government chose where they get their information from, and they chose the wrong place, that's the fact of it. They chose a different plan to what the rest of the world that was ahead of us were saying. Test, test, test and lockdown. They were even saying "why haven't you locked down yet?"

You are wrong again.

Look, this isn't rocket science. Countries all prepare in the same way, they put plans in place from independent bodies like Public Health England to be enacted in light of an emergency. The Government then follow those plans when an outbreak happens. There's no picking where the information comes from, the WHO didn't have a plan for the UK, they were offering advice on how to deal with the situation on a live basis, information that was changing daily. The UK had ONE plan to follow, which was the plan Public Health England had come up with to deal with the early stages of a pandemic, the advice from the WHO was to test more, that wouldn't have changed anything dramatically in terms of how the virus was spreading and killing people. There were no alternative plans for the Government to follow initially, I feel you are a bit confused here on what the WHO actually do.

They haven't abandoned herd immunity they just accelerated lock down measures that were always going to happen. You've already shown you don't understand what's happening here by claiming that these were 'Tory protocols', can you admit you are talking rubbish here so we can get somewhere? We did increase testing upon new advice, just like we increased lockdowns on new advice, where we slow to react to this? I'd say so yes, mainly due to conflicting scientific advice this is still conflicted today. The same reason why no country is shining light of an example here, the same reason why Italy suffered massively despite much stricter lockdowns than us at an earlier point. As I said earlier, Germany got an easier ride initially mainly due to luck, the virus doesn't act fairly, the way it spreads and is contained locally is massively important to how it continues to spread. More testing would have given us a better and clearer picture, but it wouldn't have made a big impact on our ability to stop people getting infected and subsequently dying, especially given how inaccurate the testing is. You mentioned the temperature checking in airports, most research says this is completely pointless and would very rarely identity a positive case.

The reality is that every single Government across the world can be held responsible for not acting in the right way, the progressive left wing Government in Spain have made a lot more errors than our own Government, and it's because they like everyone else didn't really know what they were doing and were going off different scientific advice.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and if we could turn back time and do things differently, every country on the planet would be making use of that. My point is that the countries initial strategy was not the work of the Tory Government, we know this because the document has been available to download online for about 15 years, and it spells out why certain decisions were made and why we took upon the strategy we did. If you want to be consistent, you've got to address the fact that the Government were following this advice that may have led them into making many mistakes. They didn't pick the wrong plan, they picked the only plan available and then adjusted it inline with new information and advice from the WHO, whilst making many mistakes in the process.

 

[Duke]

I don’t disagree with much of what you say but I get the impression you trust the Government to follow or interpret the advice of the experts in a sensible way far more than I do. There are big government choices which have been made here for which we haven’t been made fully aware of the reasons and as a member of the public I think there are big problems ahead.

My position is based on the fact you can go back and look at the expert advice that was initially available to the Government on how to react to a pandemic, their strategy was consistent with this advice, hence why I believe they were largely playing to the tune of Patrick Vallance and PHE more so than Dominic Cummings. If their strategy was significantly different and contrary to the already established protocols, I'd be saying different.

I could talk all day about the mistakes I think they've made, I just think it's important to put them into perspective and not get carried away with conspiracies based on them wanting to kill off old people and put the economy over everything else - and this is coming from someone who has never voted Tory and has little intention to do so. My position has actually shifted on this the more I've looked into the facts.

 

[HolgateCorner]

My position is based on the fact you can go back and look at the expert advice that was initially available to the Government on how to react to a pandemic, their strategy was consistent with this advice, hence why I believe they were largely playing to the tune of Patrick Vallance and PHE more so than Dominic Cummings. If their strategy was significantly different and contrary to the already established protocols, I'd be saying different.

I could talk all day about the mistakes I think they've made, I just think it's important to put them into perspective and not get carried away with conspiracies based on them wanting to kill off old people and put the economy over everything else - and this is coming from someone who has never voted Tory and has little intention to do so. My position has actually shifted on this the more I've looked into the facts.

My concern with this particular bunch of Tories is that they are highly political and the choices they make will be to maximise their position with their part of the electorate rather than try to govern for the good of everybody. I think that is why some of their decisions appear late and a lot of the messages are mixed. I have a hunch that Johnson did not want a lockdown which is why we have ended up with a partial lockdown and partial results.

 

[SmallTown]

Johnson wanted whatever was good for Johnson, as always

 

[Duke]

My concern with this particular bunch of Tories is that they are highly political and the choices they make will be to maximise their position with their part of the electorate rather than try to govern for the good of everybody. I think that is why some of their decisions appear late and a lot of the messages are mixed. I have a hunch that Johnson did not want a lockdown which is why we have ended up with a partial lockdown and partial results.

I have that fear as well, but I'd prefer not to make such presumptions of evil until they are weighted in some fact. It's really not that helpful, especially given this kind of rhetoric is more likely to empower him at times like this. All will become clear one way or another, just don't be surprised if we find out he was following advice from Patrick Vallance and PHE.

As I say, there are left wing Governments across Europe who've made similar and worse mistakes than Johnson and his cronies, I doubt people are quick to label those mistakes in the same way.

 

[Laughing]

Duke passing responsibility to the CMo is just nuts. Firstly you can delegate a task, you cannot or should not delegate responsability.

Secondly as I have already stated, we do not know the advice given bt the CMO, nor how it was framed. I find it very difficult to believe that a health professional advocated for herd immunity over the short term.

Lerts look at some facts. Boris Johnson quoted just before the lockdown that for most it would result in mild flu like symptoms. Where did that gem come from, not the CMO. This was clearly not the case given any perusal of the medical evidence that was available.

Boris Johnson advocated for herd immunity and very quickly changed the strategy. Why, cos someone said, "Hey Boris, just done the maths, and with 60% of the population infected and a 1% mortality rate, we let about 300,000 people die. You sure about this strategy?"

He shouldn't need a CMO to tell him that strategy was murderous, basic math tells you that.

Was he prepared to kill people to keep the economy running? I don't know, but it sure looks like it.

This examining new evidence is a smoke screen, we knew the mortality rate before herd immunity, we knew the consequences of catching the virus, which were certainly not mild flu like symptoms. We had a good heads up about what was working around the world, and more importantly what wasn't. The man is a sociopathic co(ksucker

For all your well structured arguments, they sound rubbish to me.

Why is it nonsense? When did countries actively start testing people who have already died for coronavirus? Who's to say that a man in America for example who died from pneumonia in December was or wasn't carrying coronavirus without a post mortem test?
How do you know you or I haven't already had it as some cases can be asymptomatic, some can be similar to a mild cold? How do you know that cold you had in January wasn't coronavirus? Some cases take a week to start showing symptoms, how many carriers of it from the China region travelled around the world before it really kicked off on January?

We know because of the mortality rate!

 

[Duke]

Duke passing responsibility to the CMo is just nuts. Firstly you can delegate a task, you cannot or should not delegate responsability.

Secondly as I have already stated, we do not know the advice given bt the CMO, nor how it was framed. I find it very difficult to believe that a health professional advocated for herd immunity over the short term.

Lerts look at some facts. Boris Johnson quoted just before the lockdown that for most it would result in mild flu like symptoms. Where did that gem come from, not the CMO. This was clearly not the case given any perusal of the medical evidence that was available.

Boris Johnson advocated for herd immunity and very quickly changed the strategy. Why, cos someone said, "Hey Boris, just done the maths, and with 60% of the population infected and a 1% mortality rate, we let about 300,000 people die. You sure about this strategy?"

He shouldn't need a CMO to tell him that strategy was murderous, basic math tells you that.

Was he prepared to kill people to keep the economy running? I don't know, but it sure looks like it.

This examining new evidence is a smoke screen, we knew the mortality rate before herd immunity, we knew the consequences of catching the virus, which were certainly not mild flu like symptoms. We had a good heads up about what was working around the world, and more importantly what wasn't. The man is a sociopathic co(ksucker

For all your well structured arguments, they sound rubbish to me.

We know because of the mortality rate!

You are talking rubbish here.

Firstly, the virus does result in mild flu like symptoms for most people, what are you talking about?

Can you please explain what you think the initial 'herd immunity plan' was? Its getting a bit boring with how badly misrepresented this is. They intended to use lockdowns and social distancing measures from day one, and they made this very clear, they never at any point said herd immunity = no lockdowns or measures to protect people. Once new information come to light that suggested the spread and mortality rate would be more than expected in this country, they brought forward those measures. Herd immunity is still the 'plan' and is part of every new exit strategy you are hearing around the world. I don't deny they had an eye on the economy, every country did, because the economy effects society and has serious consequences that also impact life. As a Tory, he will also have been thinking like a Tory, but the idea this was driving our response is unsupported.

You're not making very good arguments here.

Of course the Chief Medical Officer who Boris was visibly leaning on every time he spoke about the virus has responsibility over the logic behind our response. There's hours of footage of both Whitty and Vallance talking about why they were advising what they were advising. You are simply wrong regarding new evidence and no we didn't know the mortality rate, that still isn't clear now. The Imperial College of London put forward new modelling which was exactly that, it was new and it contradicted previous thoughts on the pandemic which was why such a big deal was made of it. How can the mortality rate have been well established if no one was testing enough, no one knew how long it had been around for and how many people were dying because of the virus?

Around 80% of people who have got COVID19 so far have experience mild flu like symptoms, so I have no idea where you are coming from with this.

 

[Wev1]

Duke,

Our "experts" and planning was generic, it had to be generic as we had little experience. The info from Asia was specific, and we didn't do what they were saying, which would have saved lives, and that was the choice of those running the country.

If they had said "look, we're going to let this run a week or two longer than we should, before we lock down, as we reckon this will make sure we max out our NHS, and get a few more people through the system" then at least it would have been honest, but brutal, but they never said that (or continued to say that). They could have also followed up with the line "for every three days we delay this, it's going to double the number of old/ vulnerable people dead, but this might save us a few ££ in the long run, which I'm sure you all think is fine".

I'm not ignorant to what the WHO and the other countries ahead of us were saying, which you obviously are, peddling that there was no other way and it was set in stone 15 years ago.

Italy suffered because they had a massive initial infection (they were the only one outside of Wuhan from what I remember), which was undetected and from an area which would ensure a quick and easy spread shortly after. Their quick lock down is the only thing that saved their absolute nightmare from becoming a nightmare 10 x bigger.

Italy had a much larger initial infection, less notice, less means to handle it and an older/ more at risk population
We had a lesser initial infection, two weeks more notice, more means and a population less at risk.
For us to perform equally or worse than Italy is an absolute travesty. That's because of bad decisions, bad advice, picking the wrong advice or ignoring the advice. All of that is ultimately the governments fault, whichever way it was done. Nobody knows the exact route they picked and why, and it doesn't matter, but what does matter is that it was late and wrong.

Spain either had a weeks less notice than us and are recovering faster or they had the same notice and recovered a lot quicker, it depends which way you look at it cases or deaths. But if you're saying they have made massive mistakes then surely our mistakes are worse, seeing as we had more notice and more resources? They also had one of the worst curves going (probably caused by a bigger early infection, so the odds were stacked against them) and seemed to have recovered that quite well since.

Lets not forget that a lot of the UK believe that Italy and Spain's situation prior to this was a lot worse than ours, effectively seeing their governments/ people/ systems as inferior. I don't think that, as I don't think we're anything special at all, and we're proving it now.

Every government can do better, but I'd rather be 8/10 trying to get 9/10 than 4/10 trying to be a 5/10.

If the plan was 15 years old, then maybe it should have been updated in the last 10 years or whatever. Or maybe use a different plan that the rest of the world are advising, based on the current criteria and information and knowing what works. Sticking to a 15 year old plan as it's the only thing you have is complete lunacy.

You're suggesting we use the crappy old Nokkia in the cuppboard, when the guy over the road is telling us there's iPhones in the shop.

If you buy the wrong players, pick the wrong team and tactics it's your own fault. You can't blame it on the inexperienced players, they guy that invented all the formations 15 years ago or the kit man that knows feck all about anything.

 

[bear66]

Duke,

Our "experts" and planning was generic, it had to be generic as we had little experience. The info from Asia was specific, and we didn't do what they were saying, which would have saved lives, and that was the choice of those running the country.

If they had said "look, we're going to let this run a week or two longer than we should, before we lock down, as we reckon this will make sure we max out our NHS, and get a few more people through the system" then at least it would have been honest, but brutal, but they never said that (or continued to say that). They could have also followed up with the line "for every three days we delay this, it's going to double the number of old/ vulnerable people dead, but this might save us a few ££ in the long run, which I'm sure you all think is fine".

I'm not ignorant to what the WHO and the other countries ahead of us were saying, which you obviously are, peddling that there was no other way and it was set in stone 15 years ago.

Italy suffered because they had a massive initial infection (they were the only one outside of Wuhan from what I remember), which was undetected and from an area which would ensure a quick and easy spread shortly after. Their quick lock down is the only thing that saved their absolute nightmare from becoming a nightmare 10 x bigger.

Italy had a much larger initial infection, less notice, less means to handle it and an older/ more at risk population
We had a lesser initial infection, two weeks more notice, more means and a population less at risk.
For us to perform equally or worse than Italy is an absolute travesty. That's because of bad decisions, bad advice, picking the wrong advice or ignoring the advice. All of that is ultimately the governments fault, whichever way it was done. Nobody knows the exact route they picked and why, and it doesn't matter, but what does matter is that it was late and wrong.

Spain either had a weeks less notice than us and are recovering faster or they had the same notice and recovered a lot quicker, it depends which way you look at it cases or deaths. But if you're saying they have made massive mistakes then surely our mistakes are worse, seeing as we had more notice and more resources? They also had one of the worst curves going (probably caused by a bigger early infection, so the odds were stacked against them) and seemed to have recovered that quite well since.

Lets not forget that a lot of the UK believe that Italy and Spain's situation prior to this was a lot worse than ours, effectively seeing their governments/ people/ systems as inferior. I don't think that, as I don't think we're anything special at all, and we're proving it now.

Every government can do better, but I'd rather be 8/10 trying to get 9/10 than 4/10 trying to be a 5/10.

If the plan was 15 years old, then maybe it should have been updated in the last 10 years or whatever. Or maybe use a different plan that the rest of the world are advising, based on the current criteria and information and knowing what works. Sticking to a 15 year old plan as it's the only thing you have is complete lunacy.

You're suggesting we use the crappy old Nokkia in the cuppboard, when the guy over the road is telling us there's iPhones in the shop.

If you buy the wrong players, pick the wrong team and tactics it's your own fault. You can't blame it on the inexperienced players, they guy that invented all the formations 15 years ago or the kit man that knows feck all about anything.

It was a 2011 document. Quite an interesting read and it sets out a framework for response rather than any specific detail, as you'd expect.2011 document

 

[Duke]

Duke,

Our "experts" and planning was generic, it had to be generic as we had little experience. The info from Asia was specific, and we didn't do what they were saying, which would have saved lives, and that was the choice of those running the country.

If they had said "look, we're going to let this run a week or two longer than we should, before we lock down, as we reckon this will make sure we max out our NHS, and get a few more people through the system" then at least it would have been honest, but brutal, but they never said that (or continued to say that). They could have also followed up with the line "for every three days we delay this, it's going to double the number of old/ vulnerable people dead, but this might save us a few ££ in the long run, which I'm sure you all think is fine".

I'm not ignorant to what the WHO and the other countries ahead of us were saying, which you obviously are, peddling that there was no other way and it was set in stone 15 years ago.

Italy suffered because they had a massive initial infection (they were the only one outside of Wuhan from what I remember), which was undetected and from an area which would ensure a quick and easy spread shortly after. Their quick lock down is the only thing that saved their absolute nightmare from becoming a nightmare 10 x bigger.

Italy had a much larger initial infection, less notice, less means to handle it and an older/ more at risk population
We had a lesser initial infection, two weeks more notice, more means and a population less at risk.
For us to perform equally or worse than Italy is an absolute travesty. That's because of bad decisions, bad advice, picking the wrong advice or ignoring the advice. All of that is ultimately the governments fault, whichever way it was done. Nobody knows the exact route they picked and why, and it doesn't matter, but what does matter is that it was late and wrong.

Spain either had a weeks less notice than us and are recovering faster or they had the same notice and recovered a lot quicker, it depends which way you look at it cases or deaths. But if you're saying they have made massive mistakes then surely our mistakes are worse, seeing as we had more notice and more resources? They also had one of the worst curves going (probably caused by a bigger early infection, so the odds were stacked against them) and seemed to have recovered that quite well since.

Lets not forget that a lot of the UK believe that Italy and Spain's situation prior to this was a lot worse than ours, effectively seeing their governments/ people/ systems as inferior. I don't think that, as I don't think we're anything special at all, and we're proving it now.

Every government can do better, but I'd rather be 8/10 trying to get 9/10 than 4/10 trying to be a 5/10.

If the plan was 15 years old, then maybe it should have been updated in the last 10 years or whatever. Or maybe use a different plan that the rest of the world are advising, based on the current criteria and information and knowing what works. Sticking to a 15 year old plan as it's the only thing you have is complete lunacy.

You're suggesting we use the crappy old Nokkia in the cuppboard, when the guy over the road is telling us there's iPhones in the shop.

If you buy the wrong players, pick the wrong team and tactics it's your own fault. You can't blame it on the inexperienced players, they guy that invented all the formations 15 years ago or the kit man that knows feck all about anything.

Wev,

We are going around in circles here and you are ranting about points I've already responded to without responding to my actual counter arguments.

- We did use a different plan based on what the rest of the world were saying and observing, that's exactly what we did. We were missing key data from Italy who were struggling to accurately collect said data and once the Imperial College of London did their modelling, we updated our plan and brought things forward. As a result, Neil Ferguson from the ICL stated that they now believe our plan is working, we will have enough ICU beds and will be able to effectively flatten the curve for the time being. It's a s***y version of a plan working, but it's the best we have at the minute and is in line with global expectations.

- The CMO and his deputies are appointed by The Department of Health and Social Care, we are not talking about supreme court judges here. The plan was updated in 2011 and was in line with most other countries, again the WHO were saying everyone needs to test more, they did not have have a wider strategic response that contradicted ours, they were analyzing countries in real time, after the fact, and giving advice. It's pretty obvious when you hear Patrick Vallance and Christ Whitty go in to detail about why certain decisions were being made, why certain timings were important etc that these decisions were not just being led by the Government.

- You claimed our experts were not experts, they were, you need to admit where you are going wrong on this. You claimed our response was based on Tory protocols, you were wrong. I'm more than happy to criticize the Government response, but in the right way. Implying that Johnson and co were responsible for picking the wrong team and wrong plan is dishonest, they did the same as every other country in following their own experts, most got it wrong. Either way, Johnson or Cummings were not the brains behind our plan and were following advice from PHE experts, which has been my point all along. You can't have it both ways, if you think we got it so badly wrong initially, attribute the blame accurately, not solely at the Boris Johnson and his team.

We had a head start, but we also had to look at data, a lot coming from China that couldn't be trusted, and incomplete data from France and Italy. There's a reason why every country has seemingly got this wrong and just because we have a steeper curve than Italy or Spain does not mean we have made more mistakes, that kind of binary thinking has no place here as there are simply too many variables involved, such as culture, adherence to policies, demographics etc.

 

[Laughing]

You are talking rubbish here.

Firstly, the virus does result in mild flu like symptoms for most people, what are you talking about?

Can you please explain what you think the initial 'herd immunity plan' was? Its getting a bit boring with how badly misrepresented this is. They intended to use lockdowns and social distancing measures from day one, and they made this very clear, they never at any point said herd immunity = no lockdowns or measures to protect people. Once new information come to light that suggested the spread and mortality rate would be more than expected in this country, they brought forward those measures. Herd immunity is still the 'plan' and is part of every new exit strategy you are hearing around the world. I don't deny they had an eye on the economy, every country did, because the economy effects society and has serious consequences that also impact life. As a Tory, he will also have been thinking like a Tory, but the idea this was driving our response is unsupported.

You're not making very good arguments here.

Of course the Chief Medical Officer who Boris was visibly leaning on every time he spoke about the virus has responsibility over the logic behind our response. There's hours of footage of both Whitty and Vallance talking about why they were advising what they were advising. You are simply wrong regarding new evidence and no we didn't know the mortality rate, that still isn't clear now. The Imperial College of London put forward new modelling which was exactly that, it was new and it contradicted previous thoughts on the pandemic which was why such a big deal was made of it. How can the mortality rate have been well established if no one was testing enough, no one knew how long it had been around for and how many people were dying because of the virus?

Around 80% of people who have got COVID19 so far have experience mild flu like symptoms, so I have no idea where you are coming from with this.

The mild flu like symptoms was a quote from Johnson, but you already knew that, I assume.

According to Johnson at a press conference, he wanted to go for herd immunity quoting 60% infection rate for a reasonable herd immunity. If this was not their plan why did the government distance themselves from that, it hasn't been mentioned for a long while?

If the government had a 2 phase plan, herd immunity and lockdown, why was this never voiced?

On mortality rate, you're right we don't know it, but we have, and have had for some time best guesses based on testing across the world and the mortality rate country by country. You can make silly arguments like we don't know the mortality rate, we absoloutely know enough to know that 60% of the population infected meant a shed load of deaths. 60% that came out of Johnson's mouth.

Defend Johnsons approach to this, even in part all you want, he is the decision maker, and his decisions have cost lives.

We are currently trending above every country in the world excluding the USA, and this is with the benfit of seeing what was happening across the EU and the wider world.

I can't begin to tell you how angry I am that nurses and doctors were asked to care for infected patience without the correct tools to keep them safe.

Johnson can keep his jovial japes, he is not fit for office.

On the pandemic plan, you are right there has been one in place for quite some time. It included a dry run of the UK's ability to handle a pandemic on scale. The advice was never actioned.

Going back to the expert advice he has been given. I have no idea what that advice was and neither do you. Did Johnson bean count? Again I don't know but his delay in locking down the country suggest he did just that.

The lack of testing at the airports for repatriation and visitors, what does the pandemic plan say about that?

I am not angry with you Duke, I am angry at a failed leadership that is costing lives. This is not about who pays what tax, it's about who lives and dies.

 

[American_Mary]

Whilst agree with the vast majority of what you’re saying Duke, something somewhere has gone wrong based on the figures we are recording, you would expect some improvement given we were behind the curve in comparison to Italy, France and Spain to take on board measures and learned lessons that meant we should have had fewer deaths, whether the fault be with the information given to the Government by PHE or whether policy was the issue isn’t going to be nuanced in the eyes of most people and the failings will ultimately be seen as the Government, rightly or wrongly.

 

[Duke]

The mild flu like symptoms was a quote from Johnson, but you already knew that, I assume.

According to Johnson at a press conference, he wanted to go for herd immunity quoting 60% infection rate for a reasonable herd immunity. If this was not their plan why did the government distance themselves from that, it hasn't been mentioned for a long while?

If the government had a 2 phase plan, herd immunity and lockdown, why was this never voiced?

On mortality rate, you're right we don't know it, but we have, and have had for some time best guesses based on testing across the world and the mortality rate country by country. You can make silly arguments like we don't know the mortality rate, we absoloutely know enough to know that 60% of the population infected meant a shed load of deaths. 60% that came out of Johnson's mouth.

Defend Johnsons approach to this, even in part all you want, he is the decision maker, and his decisions have cost lives.

We are currently trending above every country in the world excluding the USA, and this is with the benfit of seeing what was happening across the EU and the wider world.

I can't begin to tell you how angry I am that nurses and doctors were asked to care for infected patience without the correct tools to keep them safe.

Johnson can keep his jovial japes, he is not fit for office.

On the pandemic plan, you are right there has been one in place for quite some time. It included a dry run of the UK's ability to handle a pandemic on scale. The advice was never actioned.

Going back to the expert advice he has been given. I have no idea what that advice was and neither do you. Did Johnson bean count? Again I don't know but his delay in locking down the country suggest he did just that.

The lack of testing at the airports for repatriation and visitors, what does the pandemic plan say about that?

I am not angry with you Duke, I am angry at a failed leadership that is costing lives. This is not about who pays what tax, it's about who lives and dies.

Yes the quote was from Johnson, and he was absolutely correct, 80% of people who contract the virus will experience mild flu like symptoms. You have completely lost me on this, are you making a different point or did you get it wrong?

When did Johnson or anyone say the plan was for herd immunity? They talked about it, because it's an almost inevitable consequence, they stopped talking about it because it's terrifying and terrible PR quite frankly and they never said it was a plan as far as I am aware. If they did, they wrong, and were right to take this back, but realistically their plan hasn't changed dramatically.

Plans for a lockdown where voiced from day one, you know this as well as I do. In the very first press conference they made a point of saying they were going to be asking people to do very difficult things over the coming weeks, ie self isolate and that they would be introducing lockdown measures when the time is right. The reality is that people freaked out with the herd immunity stuff, the press massively sensationalized it and coupled with the Cummins comments it become way too politicized.

Your right we don't know whether he deliberately choose not to follow certain advise from PHE, we don't know if he told them to lie and when they were up on that stage, we don't know what pressure he was putting on or what pressure they were putting on him. That's why I think we should wait for the facts on this one before we make statements about him deliberately sacrificing lives and going against scientific advise.

As I said earlier, I'd rather focus on the stuff we do know, which is the lack of equipment, the underfunding etc. For two reasons mainly, we know his Government are at fault for this and blame lies solely with them, and it's something that will hit much harder with the general public who are now more than ever waking up to how key workers and healthcare staff are treated. Conspiring about him and his Government ignoring expert advice when that doesn't appear to be the case, has the opposite impact.

 

[Duke]

Whilst agree with the vast majority of what you’re saying Duke, something somewhere has gone wrong based on the figures we are recording, you would expect some improvement given we were behind the curve in comparison to Italy, France and Spain to take on board measures and learned lessons that meant we should have had fewer deaths, whether the fault be with the information given to the Government by PHE or whether policy was the issue is going to be nuanced in the eyes of most people and the failings will ultimately be seen as the Government, rightly or wrongly.

I can't disagree with this and I have no issue with putting the pressure on after this to find out whether there was negligence involved and to what extent they wavered from PHE advice and vice versa. My point is simply that it's dishonest to blame our initial strategy and response as if it was the brain child of Boris and Cummings, and any mistakes must be attributed to them wanting to protect the economy and not care about people dying.

 

[kuepper]

Everything is political. In February after he'd come out of hiding Cobra were presented with options advocating the measures he took a month later but he chose to ignore them putting the economy before people's lives. He continued to gnore WHO mantra of test test test and follow up contacts which still isn't being done. There are still frontline staff without adequate PPE. Even the actions the govt subsequently took in dribs and drabs were only taken because organisations in society had already started taking the exact same steps themselves. So the virus was allowed to enter the UK and circulate freely for weeks and incredibly we're still allowing people into the UK every day from USA, Spain etc unchecked. Consequently we're heading for 66000 deaths, many totally avoidable

 

[kuepper]

 

[Randy]

That graph is one of hundreds produced worldwide, which graph is the DEFINITIVE one?
Exactly, there isn't one as people have different ways of adding up the same figures and getting very different results. Don't people remember the chart that had us at 250,000 deaths?
Plus who cares what's happening in other countries? Loads of different variables to take into account, cultures, finances, levels of health-care, types of healthcare, how much the population is built up or spread out, the age of the population because yes the disease is still deadlier to those over a certain age than those who are younger, how many people with underlying health conditions in each country differs, etc etc.

 

[American_Mary]

I can't disagree with this and I have no issue with putting the pressure on after this to find out whether there was negligence involved and to what extent they wavered from PHE advice and vice versa. My point is simply that it's dishonest to blame our initial strategy and response as if it was the brain child of Boris and Cummings, and any mistakes must be attributed to them wanting to protect the economy and not care about people dying.

No I think that’s more than fair and I think most people would accept that initially the government were following PHE advice and any party would have done the same, if and when there was a divergence from said path will no doubt be scrutinised when we come out of the other side, hopefully with absolute clarity and those responsible be praised or criticised as appropriate, my concern, and maybe says more about me as a cynic than the reality, is that a liberal coating of politically protective whitewash is applied and someone within the PHE becomes the fall guy.

 

[Laughing]

Duke my issue is with Johnsons vocalization of what mild meant. he said, and I quote "For the vast majority they will experience mild flu like symptoms".

The definition of mild symptoms was, and still is "No or slight pnuemonia". My son has had the virus with slight pnuemonia and was hospitalised for 4 days. He is defined as having mild symptoms from a clinical perspective. He couldn't get out of bed for a week before being taken in to hospital. Again I say he was suferring mild symptoms as the clinical definition. Johnson's statement, whilst clinically true was misleading.

We currently have approximately 1/3 of all confirmed cases taking up hospital beds. A lot of those will be classed as mild. I know that lots of folks haven't been tested and some may be asymptomati and it is difficult to estimate what percentage of sufferers have been hospitalised, but then that is because of inadequate testing.

That is my issue with Johnson's blaise comment on morning tv, said with a smug grin I might add.