Coronavirus

Tbf I’d say I’m neither happy or unhappy with the governments handling of the situation. I think they’ve done well with some decisions and made mistakes with others. I think they’ve done their best to deal with an unprecedented situation and with hindsight I’m sure we will see where they got it right and wrong.

There are a handful of governments around the world who have dealt with it very well, mostly countries with smaller populations and less population density. And there’s lots of countries who have had varying degrees of success and failure in different areas.

I don’t think it would have made much difference who we had in charge, there would have been similar successes and failures. Would Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn have dealt with it any better? I doubt it given they’d be working with the same scientific advisors, clinicians, PHE, the NHS etc... getting the same advice. There may have been slightly different decisions at slightly different times but I can’t see it having made much difference who was in charge.

It’s a **** situation, a lot of people will die, I personally don’t see the need to go looking for someone to blame.

 

Theyve done well with the Temp hospitals and the job retention scheme but the lapse approach to warnings was unacceptable.

 

This is how I view it.

There have been mistakes, slow actions and dithering but there has also been some very positive actions and approaches.

'The Government' are there to be shot at, it's when it becomes 'The Tories'. (no, I'm not a ****ing Tory, thanks).

I look at what they're doing and try to see if A N Other party would have done better?

For every Boris and Priti Patel, there's is a Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott.

The answer is, therefore, not really, I doubt very much they would.

And no, I don't think any other party would have a Covid-19 test and a warehouse full of spare PPE and ventilators to hand, that's just a nonsense idea, sorry.

 

They got the easier (not easy but easier) decisions wrong both years ago and in the vital days/weeks early on, particularly when we could all see Italy and Spain in chaos while we were relatively unaffected but sitting on a time bomb. I don’t doubt there’s been a big effort to swim against the tide but the tide has been far bigger than it needed to be.

I expect I’m more sceptical than most about the government’s underlying motivations and there’s an element of guesswork in that, not helped by how opaque they insist on being.

We’ll never know for sure what Cameron/May/Brown/Blair/Thatcher would’ve done for sure but I honestly don’t see how they’d have done as badly with the points in my first paragraph.

 

The old "Dianne Abbott" manoeuvre. Trot that one out every time the government's in trouble chaps, it hasn't failed us yet.

 

Greece down to Zero deaths

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...nse-success-test-economy-reopen-a9489391.html

This shows what can be done

 

I've covered this one off before, regarding Sweden, it comes down to land mass v population, I think density is the word I'm looking for.

 

I think this is the list I used before...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population

84 Greece
88 Sweden

 

You would still expect a lot higher mortality rate given the size of the Athens metropolitan area !

 

I just need to get clear in my head why I’m seeing these figures differently. This shows on the ONS website that the top line is total number of deaths for the week. The second line is the total death 5 year average for the week and the 6th line down shows total Covid-19 deaths.

I thought that 22,351 figure was the total number of people died that week?

 

Draw your own conclusions mate, I'm not here to argue that, I'm merely stating the virus has a strong hold in dense populations. Hence on that part alone, then add in other equasions, by that I mean; Sweden + Greece versus UK + Italy or Spain etc.

 

ps. Just checked Athens (City) population 664,000

In the urban area; 3,153,168

 

Athens is pretty densely populated. More so than London so I’ve learned something today.

 

Athens City population is declining, I took these details from online;

London has the superior city population with 8.136 million compared to 664 046 in Athens. London's rating is a 9 while Athens rating is a 5.

Population of Athens
The population of Athens is currently 664 046, down from over 700 000 in 2004. Thus, the population of Athens has decreased. Also, the population of London is much larger than Athens, which can be a good or a bad thing. It is a good thing because it helps the economy, but Athens is less crowded and therefore easier to explore without the need to wait in lines or for pedestrians.

 

100 percent this really. I hope when the dust settles on this in years to come and people assess how it was handled they can try and be realistic about the sheer amount of uncertainty there was. How we exit is going to be the key indicator of how it has gone, not least as they are working with much more information - but still nowhere near as much as people would want.

 

versus London and New York being the big financial capitals of the world that would have had thousands of people flying in from all around the world on a daily basis into densely populated areas. Not a good mix.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/ukne...ers-actually-showed-up/ar-BB13pfhD?li=BBoPRmx

 

I did tell you

 

Hopefully it’ll lead to an increase in wages for those doing fruit picking as demand for labour outstrips supply. This would obviously lead to an increase in price for consumers or government subsidies if they feel it would push consumer prices to a point that makes it prohibitive for lower earners to afford fruit and veg (in the name of public health). But might lead to a fairer wage for the work and in return an increase in those wanting to do the work. Hopefully that’ll happen at an efficient enough speed to stop certain farmers becoming unviable and going under. It’ll be an interesting sector to watch over the next few years.