- May 22, 2011
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When AIDS was first detected it didn't take long before science and medicine knew exactly how it was spread and therefore how individuals could protect against it - all myths aside obviously. This pandemic has been totally different. Covid has been around in one form or another since the 1960's but this strain is like nothing ever seen before. That has made it nigh on impossible to get to grips with. The very best scientists and experts in the field have been giving conflicting information from the start as it has confounded them too.
Apart from the obvious suffering and deaths, the one thing that continues to anger me is the effort to try and make it political. Boris Johnson has acted like a buffoon in his personal approach to it, remember him boasting about shaking hands with a virus victim and saying 'it's fine if you wash your hands' - then looking around the room for confirmation - 'before? after?' , only to shortly afterwards get it himself quite badly. But ...... I don't see how he or his party can take the blame for the poor handling of lockdowns etc. when there are 'experts' advising him. There's no doubt lots of mistakes have been made as evidenced by our numbers but if anyone in the country of a different political persuasion had the answers then they owed it to all of us to share that information. It's easy to criticise, not so easy to come up with solutions. They used to call it back seat driving although I'm not sure that actually applies either.
I agree .
I’m no Tory lover , but I defy ANY POLITCAL PARTY ( or their supporters ) to say how it could be done better . We all have degrees in Hindsight !
The only thing I can think of is when he said he trusted in our ( public ) to use common sense .
Eat out to help out was a great idea and didn't fly in the face of the advice from experts at all. I'm sorry but I can't defend the government on this and use the hindsight excuse. ****ing idiots who didn't listen to the advice and caused deaths because of their idiotic little brains.
Half of Europe was still in lock down when the UK ignored it and allowed 6 nations Rugby, Cheltenham festival and locally atletico fans and lfc fans go to cl game and that alone caused massive case rate and many deaths.
We were unhappy at the time so its not hindsight
Ok .
I had posted a reply , but as soon as I did I realised it was purely childish .
I agree that the herd mentality was stupid and dangerous , and the Bojo didn’t take it seriously enough in the first instance , and perhaps doesn’t even now , or at least not seriously enough .
I do however still think that hindsight is a wonderful thing , we are not experts ( in all seriousness , some on here may well be ) .
I just think that yes serious mistakes were made but I’m not convinced any other govt would not have made them as well .
Apart from the herd mentality bit .
That is my opinion and I stand by it .
To be honest,
a) Labour - do we really think they'd be any better? honeslty not, totally incompetant as well.
b) Global examples: Spain, desperate to open up after horrendous lockdown just as bad after. Italy. Same. Australia, just as bad totally rested on laurels and are now in lockdown having totally wasted their chance to go for vaccinations. France, just as bad in fighting over Sanofi who still don't have their vaccine out i think.
c) The very special special cases like brazil and the US under trump. They both make johnson look like a saint.
Could a competent government do better? Yes. You've highlighted the issueYou must log in or register to see images
Spike 1 is somewhat down to resistance to doing anything do we really know how much much? probably not. After that IMO they resisted again in december and jan but the reality for us all is nobody wanted to know after july/august about suppressing this thing and thats US not the government alone.
Did we have an alternative? not really, especially not in the UK
Say Corbyn won the election. He'd have faffed about. we could all see him playing both sides on brexit so why would he not half ass the whole thing just as much as johnson.
I would have to say that we need to see that there is a real difference in the above graph from last year to this coming year in terms of deaths because we have the vaccine. That's the trick form here as if jonhson and the Tories are wrong then our freedom day fun anf games now is going to bite very hard in decemebr and january as i sincerely doubt the majority will take another lockodwn in winter.
If I remember rightly Labour panned the government for going it alone for a vaccine and wanted us to stick with the EU. Thank God we didn't listen to them.
Whatever party was in cahrge would have meds some mistakes as Covid was a completely unknown quantity.
If I remember rightly Labour panned the government for going it alone for a vaccine and wanted us to stick with the EU. Thank God we didn't listen to them.
Whatever party was in cahrge would have meds some mistakes as Covid was a completely unknown quantity.
There are mistakes and incompetence
They could be forgiven for standing with there fingers up their arse while people died in China, but continuing to do nothing while it spread through out Europe and take a hold in the UK is unforgivable.
Boris was licking people while other countries where going into lock down.
His dithering cost people their lives, it will be forgotten about, but his refusal to take it seriously was not a mistake made through lack of information.
He didn’t bother attending the first 5 COBRA meetings on the issue of COVID.Have to remember Johnson nearly killed himself with his attitude.
A lot has happened since but let's not forget him swanning about shaking hands and all that in a covid ward refusing to wear a mask.
We need to see that the advisors are his appointments so if he blames bad info he really only has himself to blame.
He didn’t bother attending the first 5 COBRA meetings on the issue of COVID.
He made his infamous ‘Superman’ speech in Feb and went on National TV talking about ‘letting the virus rip through’. His intention until the middle of March was the lunacy of herd immunity. It wasn’t until he was presented with a report that stated that doing nothing would cost at least 500k lives that he was shook into facing reality. By that point the virus was already spreading like wildfire. The man is personally culpable for 10’s of thousands deaths, and that’s without mentioning the similar delays in the later lockdowns.
it's alright mate i'm fairly certain we won't catch it from here .Incidentally, I'm working at home today, suspected COVID (yes fully vaccinated and always wear masks) not bad, just trying not to spread it.
Coughing, congested, achy, sense of taste weakened. Classic symptoms just really mild. Home test said negative but keeping away from people just in case.
I somehow managed to catch it after having both jabs, barely going anywhere and wearing a mask etc. Fortunately the symptoms were mild and the vaccine did it’s job.Incidentally, I'm working at home today, suspected COVID (yes fully vaccinated and always wear masks... But my vaccination was back in December and it loses a little bit of effectiveness after six months) I'm not bad at all, just trying not to spread it.
Coughing, congested, achy, sense of taste weakened. Classic symptoms just really mild. Home test said negative but keeping away from people just in case, because it makes sense the home test might have been inaccurate.
All governments should be pressurizing the populace to get vaccinated.
Unvaccinated people are a breeding ground for variants, like the lambda Variant which can infect vaccinated people more easily.
If everyone got vaccinated this would be over in a season. Only vaccinating half the population it will continue to mutate and put both the vaccinated and unvaccinated at risk. This is going to be like the flu with waves every year.
When AIDS was first detected it didn't take long before science and medicine knew exactly how it was spread and therefore how individuals could protect against it - all myths aside obviously. This pandemic has been totally different. Covid has been around in one form or another since the 1960's but this strain is like nothing ever seen before. That has made it nigh on impossible to get to grips with. The very best scientists and experts in the field have been giving conflicting information from the start as it has confounded them too.
Apart from the obvious suffering and deaths, the one thing that continues to anger me is the effort to try and make it political. Boris Johnson has acted like a buffoon in his personal approach to it, remember him boasting about shaking hands with a virus victim and saying 'it's fine if you wash your hands' - then looking around the room for confirmation - 'before? after?' , only to shortly afterwards get it himself quite badly. But ...... I don't see how he or his party can take the blame for the poor handling of lockdowns etc. when there are 'experts' advising him. There's no doubt lots of mistakes have been made as evidenced by our numbers but if anyone in the country of a different political persuasion had the answers then they owed it to all of us to share that information. It's easy to criticise, not so easy to come up with solutions. They used to call it back seat driving although I'm not sure that actually applies either.