So, coronavirus...

[Calculon]

Seems unlikely but possible to me. The cases and deaths would've been low in the summer.

The UK's confirmed first death was 30th of January 2020, the man who died had never left the UK in his entire life. His daughter suspected he died of Covid-19 when the pandemic accelerated later in 2020 and had a postmortem done (before then the UK's first confirmed case as the day after he died). For someone to die of Covid-19 in the UK on the 30th of January 2020, means it was in the UK in the wild at least in December 2019 which would predate the first official Chinese statements it existed on the 30th and 31st of December 2019.

https://metro.co.uk/2021/01/30/daughter ... -13992448/

It's been reported that US intelligence intercepted internal Chinese communications in November 2019 talking about Covid and that the US shared that intelligence with NATO and Israel. How true that is, I have no idea. Brazilian sewerage samples from November 2019 that were later tested for Covid-19, showed it was there in Brazil before the first confirmed case in South America. Tests on tissue samples taken in November 2019 show it was in France and Italy by then also.

Whatever the case it didn't "emerge globally in January/February of 2020", and we knew that last year already, it was fully global by December 2019 at the very latest.

It's claiming sars-cov-2 was "spreading virulently" since at least May 2019, when it alleges that a significant increase in spending" was noticed.

I don't know the credentials of the authors "Internet 2.0" , but they allege that there was an increase of
3.8 million spent on "PCR equipment" in Hubei in 2019 from the previous year. Hubei is a province of 58 million. That amount of money is absolute peanuts for spending on, however "Internet 2.0" defined it, "PCR equipment."

It doesn't matter, if it was "spreading virulently" since at least May 2019 in Wuhan, the chances of it not spreading virulently outside of Wuhan till December 2019 is very unlikely. It's a silly report.

25+ million passengers fly into/out of Wuhan each year, many to and from international destinations. I would have thought that some of them might have caught an extremely virulent virus and carried it to other Chinese or overseas destinations pretty quickly and probably in fairly large numbers, certainly within a few weeks or months of the virus spreading through Wuhan? If covid was spreading in Summer then I would have thought it would have been identified by late summer in a number of locations across the world?

sure , and if they were already significantly increasing spending on PCR equipment to test for a novel sars cov by May, it actually suggest that the virus was more likely spreading virulently by April if not earlier.

I had a look at the spending figures published by Internet 2.0, and spending on "pcr equipment" in hubei province doubled from 2015 to 2016, so maybe sars cov 2 was already spreading virulently in 2016?

[_Os_]

first reply to that tweet sums up my feelings

Seems unlikely but possible to me. The cases and deaths would've been low in the summer.

The UK's confirmed first death was 30th of January 2020, the man who died had never left the UK in his entire life. His daughter suspected he died of Covid-19 when the pandemic accelerated later in 2020 and had a postmortem done (before then the UK's first confirmed case as the day after he died). For someone to die of Covid-19 in the UK on the 30th of January 2020, means it was in the UK in the wild at least in December 2019 which would predate the first official Chinese statements it existed on the 30th and 31st of December 2019.

https://metro.co.uk/2021/01/30/daughter ... -13992448/

It's been reported that US intelligence intercepted internal Chinese communications in November 2019 talking about Covid and that the US shared that intelligence with NATO and Israel. How true that is, I have no idea. Brazilian sewerage samples from November 2019 that were later tested for Covid-19, showed it was there in Brazil before the first confirmed case in South America. Tests on tissue samples taken in November 2019 show it was in France and Italy by then also.

Whatever the case it didn't "emerge globally in January/February of 2020", and we knew that last year already, it was fully global by December 2019 at the very latest.

It's claiming sars-cov-2 was "spreading virulently" since at least May 2019, when it alleges that a significant increase in spending" was noticed.

I don't know the credentials of the authors "Internet 2.0" , but they allege that there was an increase of
3.5 million sterling spent on "PCR equipment" in Hubei in 2019 from the previous year. Hubei is a province of 58 million. That amount of money is absolute peanuts for spending on, however "Internet 2.0" defined it, "PCR equipment."

It doesn't matter, if it was "spreading virulently" since at least May 2019 in Wuhan, the chances of it not spreading virulently outside of Wuhan till December 2019 is very unlikely. It's a silly report.

May 2019 seems far too early. But it was in Europe and South America in November 2019, so August-September 2019 in Wuhan seems entirely possible to me which is the summer. The Chinese government lied the whole way through this, so I wouldn't believe anything they come out with.

[Calculon]

May 2019 seems far too early. But it was in Europe and South America in November 2019, so August-September 2019 in Wuhan seems entirely possible to me which is the summer. The Chinese government lied the whole way through this, so I wouldn't believe anything they come out with.

I have no idea what the Chinese government's official position (if they have one) is on when the most recent common ancestor of sars cov 2 emerged, but these phylogenetic studies suggest October or November 2019.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jmv.25731

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7095063/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7199730/

I've not properly read the articles and even if I did my knowledge of phylogenetics is nowhere near good enough to act as a critical reviewer. Even so, fwiw, October 2019 seems reasonable to me

[Slick]

41,000 cases in EU yesterday, 34,000 in the UK! Just as well we left the EU, think what our covid numbers would be like if we hadn't!

Looking at the cases /100k , UK is 50, EU (west) less than 10, even the US with all the crazy mother’s f..kers in the red states is around 30/100k.

Why these numbers in the UK? I like to know as the medias here don’t talk about it.

I was reading an article at the weekend that was saying that in most other European countries people were still wearing masks and following social distancing, whereas in the U.K., particularly England, it has mostly gone and people just don’t seem to care any longer

[ScarfaceClaw]

41,000 cases in EU yesterday, 34,000 in the UK! Just as well we left the EU, think what our covid numbers would be like if we hadn't!

Looking at the cases /100k , UK is 50, EU (west) less than 10, even the US with all the crazy mother’s f..kers in the red states is around 30/100k.

Why these numbers in the UK? I like to know as the medias here don’t talk about it.

I was reading an article at the weekend that was saying that in most other European countries people were still wearing masks and following social distancing, whereas in the U.K., particularly England, it has mostly gone and people just don’t seem to care any longer

I’m on a train for the first time in 18 months. I’d say probably 1/3 of the people are rocking masks. The closer you get to central London though the fewer there are with masks or any thought of keeping a distance.

[Lobby]

41,000 cases in EU yesterday, 34,000 in the UK! Just as well we left the EU, think what our covid numbers would be like if we hadn't!

Looking at the cases /100k , UK is 50, EU (west) less than 10, even the US with all the crazy mother’s f..kers in the red states is around 30/100k.

Why these numbers in the UK? I like to know as the medias here don’t talk about it.

I was reading an article at the weekend that was saying that in most other European countries people were still wearing masks and following social distancing, whereas in the U.K., particularly England, it has mostly gone and people just don’t seem to care any longer

There are several EU countries that now have better vaccination rates than the UK, and have also been vaccinating children over 12 since May. In contrast, vaccination rates have stalled here, particularly amongst younger people. We have also been reluctant to vaccinate children. Most of the infections seem to be in these groups,

It’s also worth remembering that infections rates across the EU are variable, and there are several EU states (mainly in Eastern Europe) with significantly higher rates than the UK.

That said, the rates in comparable Western European countries are much much lower than the UK.

[dpedin]

Looking at the cases /100k , UK is 50, EU (west) less than 10, even the US with all the crazy mother’s f..kers in the red states is around 30/100k.

Why these numbers in the UK? I like to know as the medias here don’t talk about it.

I was reading an article at the weekend that was saying that in most other European countries people were still wearing masks and following social distancing, whereas in the U.K., particularly England, it has mostly gone and people just don’t seem to care any longer

There are several EU countries that now have better vaccination rates than the UK, and have also been vaccinating children over 12 since May. In contrast, vaccination rates have stalled here, particularly amongst younger people. We have also been reluctant to vaccinate children. Most of the infections seem to be in these groups,

It’s also worth remembering that infections rates across the EU are variable, and there are several EU states (mainly in Eastern Europe) with significantly higher rates than the UK.

That said, the rates in comparable Western European countries are much much lower than the UK.

I agree with this. There seems to be more social responsibility in comparable European countries to following PH advice plus out gov have gone out of their way to provide inappropriate or ineffectual PH advice ie mask wearing!

I appreciate case numbers can be a mixed bag and difficult to compare however the comparative numbers I quoted are pretty stark. However the death rates, which I know some will say are also difficult to compare, would also suggest the UK has a problem. The overall picture is pretty damning for the UK whichever stats you want to use in order to compare us with comparable European countries. We are covid central and the sick man of Western Europe!

[Paddington Bear]

Are case numbers really wildly out of kilter skewed towards England in the UK? Didn't appear so last I checked although I'm not constantly looking at these things

[sockwithaticket]

Looking at the cases /100k , UK is 50, EU (west) less than 10, even the US with all the crazy mother’s f..kers in the red states is around 30/100k.

Why these numbers in the UK? I like to know as the medias here don’t talk about it.

I was reading an article at the weekend that was saying that in most other European countries people were still wearing masks and following social distancing, whereas in the U.K., particularly England, it has mostly gone and people just don’t seem to care any longer

I’m on a train for the first time in 18 months. I’d say probably 1/3 of the people are rocking masks. The closer you get to central London though the fewer there are with masks or any thought of keeping a distance.

Same. I get off at Guildford, but most people on my train will be London-bound and it'a definitely a minority still sporting a mask.

[dpedin]

Are case numbers really wildly out of kilter skewed towards England in the UK? Didn't appear so last I checked although I'm not constantly looking at these things

I'm not sure anyone said this?

Case numbers in UK are bad in all 4 countries. Scotland got a bad hit when schools went back and were highest in the UK but now England and Wales is suffering same effect. When you look at profile the increase in Scotland was driven by cases in u24 year olds - school and college/uni age groups. However this leaked into u45 year olds as parents became infected by kids who contracted virus at school etc. However Scotland has highest vaccination rates in UK and hospital and admission rates remained low'ish and are dropping now after time lag works through.Same pattern is being seen in England and Wales albeit 2-3 weeks delayed as schools went back later.

Overall, for whole pandemic NI has had the highest number of cases per 100k of pop but England does tend to have highest death rates per 100k of pop across all three measures - within 28 days, by death cert and excess deaths.

[tc27]

Are case numbers really wildly out of kilter skewed towards England in the UK? Didn't appear so last I checked although I'm not constantly looking at these things

Over the summer of 2020 Scottish nationalism got a big boost by the perception that the devolved government had handled the epidemic much better than the the UK government had handled it in England (which as of yet has no devolved government) based on case numbers. This lead to the claim by by Nicola Sturgeon that the virus was effectively eliminated over the summer of 2020 in Scotland only to be reseeded by visitors from England (the former based on incorrect data and the second a fairly scurrilous claim by a politician claiming respectability).

Of course subsequent events have undermined this narrative and subsequently the comparable metrics (deaths with CV19 on the certificate) and total cases have fallen broadly into line with each other (particularity given in population and density terms England is quite a different proposition to the other UK nations).

[fishfoodie]

Are case numbers really wildly out of kilter skewed towards England in the UK? Didn't appear so last I checked although I'm not constantly looking at these things

I'm not sure anyone said this?

Case numbers in UK are bad in all 4 countries. Scotland got a bad hit when schools went back and were highest in the UK but now England and Wales is suffering same effect. When you look at profile the increase in Scotland was driven by cases in u24 year olds - school and college/uni age groups. However this leaked into u45 year olds as parents became infected by kids who contracted virus at school etc. However Scotland has highest vaccination rates in UK and hospital and admission rates remained low'ish and are dropping now after time lag works through.Same pattern is being seen in England and Wales albeit 2-3 weeks delayed as schools went back later.

Overall, for whole pandemic NI has had the highest number of cases per 100k of pop but England does tend to have highest death rates per 100k of pop across all three measures - within 28 days, by death cert and excess deaths.

I think the key was sending kids back to school/university, before having time for getting a significant cohort of them vaccinated.

Everyone wanted to get back to in person learning; but without them being vaccinated, it was always going to end in a massive spike in cases.

Was the delays in the UK caused by the reliance on the AZ vaccine ?

[Tichtheid]

Are case numbers really wildly out of kilter skewed towards England in the UK? Didn't appear so last I checked although I'm not constantly looking at these things

I'm not sure anyone said this?

Case numbers in UK are bad in all 4 countries. Scotland got a bad hit when schools went back and were highest in the UK but now England and Wales is suffering same effect. When you look at profile the increase in Scotland was driven by cases in u24 year olds - school and college/uni age groups. However this leaked into u45 year olds as parents became infected by kids who contracted virus at school etc. However Scotland has highest vaccination rates in UK and hospital and admission rates remained low'ish and are dropping now after time lag works through.Same pattern is being seen in England and Wales albeit 2-3 weeks delayed as schools went back later.

Overall, for whole pandemic NI has had the highest number of cases per 100k of pop but England does tend to have highest death rates per 100k of pop across all three measures - within 28 days, by death cert and excess deaths.

The latest interactive map of cases https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details ... -map/cases

I didn't click on every single area, but from the ones I did the almost all the Scottish areas are seeing a declining number of cases (there is an odd exception of the Outer Hebrides for some reason). Likewise areas in Norn Irn and Wales are decreasing with the majority of areas in England showing increases.
I thought schools in Wales went back the same time as the English ones, perhaps not.

[dpedin]

Are case numbers really wildly out of kilter skewed towards England in the UK? Didn't appear so last I checked although I'm not constantly looking at these things

Over the summer of 2020 Scottish nationalism got a big boost by the perception that the devolved government had handled the epidemic much better than the the UK government had handled it in England (which as of yet has no devolved government) based on case numbers. This lead to the claim by by Nicola Sturgeon that the virus was effectively eliminated over the summer of 2020 in Scotland only to be reseeded by visitors from England (the former based on incorrect data and the second a fairly scurrilous claim by a politician claiming respectability).

Of course subsequent events have undermined this narrative and subsequently the comparable metrics (deaths with CV19 on the certificate) and total cases have fallen broadly into line with each other (particularity given in population and density terms England is quite a different proposition to the other UK nations).

Pop density doesn't drive/explain differences in case numbers - compare us with Japan for instance.

[yermum]

3 out of 4 in my house have covid. I am legend now

Came back from my eldest daughters School.

[Muttonbird]

3 out of 4 in my house have covid. I am legend now

Came back from my eldest daughters School.

Me and the boy were due second Pfizer on 21 October, six weeks after the first. Brought it forward to this morning (4 weeks) on government advice. This will give the whole family protection when he and his sister return to school on 18 October (hopefully).

A slow motion train-wreck is coming to NZ, don't want to end up anywhere near a hospital in the next three months.

[FalseBayFC]

3 out of 4 in my house have covid. I am legend now

Came back from my eldest daughters School.

Me and the boy were due second Pfizer on 21 October, six weeks after the first. Brought it forward to this morning (4 weeks) on government advice. This will give the whole family protection when he and his sister return to school on 18 October (hopefully).

A slow motion train-wreck is coming to NZ, don't want to end up anywhere near a hospital in the next three months.

You're fortunate that your health workers are mostly jabbed. We had 1300 healthcare workers die from this. Many of them were retired doctors and nurses who returned to the wards during the emergency.

But clinical care of bad covid cases is light years ahead of where it was in early 2020. And this Pfizer anti-viral looks real promising. We got through the worst despite having much lower doctor, nurse and hospital bed numbers per capita. I'm sure you guys will manage.

[Paddington Bear]

Are case numbers really wildly out of kilter skewed towards England in the UK? Didn't appear so last I checked although I'm not constantly looking at these things

Over the summer of 2020 Scottish nationalism got a big boost by the perception that the devolved government had handled the epidemic much better than the the UK government had handled it in England (which as of yet has no devolved government) based on case numbers. This lead to the claim by by Nicola Sturgeon that the virus was effectively eliminated over the summer of 2020 in Scotland only to be reseeded by visitors from England (the former based on incorrect data and the second a fairly scurrilous claim by a politician claiming respectability).

Of course subsequent events have undermined this narrative and subsequently the comparable metrics (deaths with CV19 on the certificate) and total cases have fallen broadly into line with each other (particularity given in population and density terms England is quite a different proposition to the other UK nations).

Pop density doesn't drive/explain differences in case numbers - compare us with Japan for instance.

Japan is the comparison no one wants to touch (Cummings was right about the 'asians are weird' mindset that partially explains this).

All that said, I think pop density does help to explain faster spread in the UK than other Western European nations.

[tc27]

Over the summer of 2020 Scottish nationalism got a big boost by the perception that the devolved government had handled the epidemic much better than the the UK government had handled it in England (which as of yet has no devolved government) based on case numbers. This lead to the claim by by Nicola Sturgeon that the virus was effectively eliminated over the summer of 2020 in Scotland only to be reseeded by visitors from England (the former based on incorrect data and the second a fairly scurrilous claim by a politician claiming respectability).

Of course subsequent events have undermined this narrative and subsequently the comparable metrics (deaths with CV19 on the certificate) and total cases have fallen broadly into line with each other (particularity given in population and density terms England is quite a different proposition to the other UK nations).

Pop density doesn't drive/explain differences in case numbers - compare us with Japan for instance.

Japan is the comparison no one wants to touch (Cummings was right about the 'asians are weird' mindset that partially explains this).

All that said, I think pop density does help to explain faster spread in the UK than other Western European nations.

Population density is one factor but its fair to say its complicated. And I think if you admit population density might not be the driving factor then you also have to admit its probably not the relatively minor differences in the approach to policy within the UK itself.

To illustrate this point the region in the UK that has the lowest covid related death is the Southwest of England (153.4 per 100k) but England also has the region with the highest deaths (North West at
293 per 100k). Both these regions have larger populations than any of the other UK nations and both had the same public health policies set directly by the UK government.

[Calculon]

In what way are Asians weird? In general, the way their governments and populace have behaved as a response to the pandemic seems to have been pretty sensible and grown up. An example from the start of the pandemic:

on March 9 2020, the Japanese government had introduced its “3Cs policy”: avoid closed spaces, crowded places and close contact, especially when talking or singing. These three measures were based on detailed analysis of outbreaks using not just prospective contact tracing (to identify people who may have caught the disease from an infected individual) but retrospective tracing (to find how that individual became infected).

This allowed public health experts to hypothesise about a possible airborne route of transmission. The Japanese government was honest with the public, explicitly invoking the precautionary principle:

We do not have enough scientific evidence yet on how significantly such actions can reduce the risk of spreading infection. However, since places with poor ventilation and crowded places are increasing infections, we ask that you take precautions even before scientific evidence for clear standards is found.

This prompt and cautious policy, based on preliminary but rigorous science, helped ensure that Japan’s first wave was tiny

[dpedin]

Pop density doesn't drive/explain differences in case numbers - compare us with Japan for instance.

Japan is the comparison no one wants to touch (Cummings was right about the 'asians are weird' mindset that partially explains this).

All that said, I think pop density does help to explain faster spread in the UK than other Western European nations.

Population density is one factor but its fair to say its complicated. And I think if you admit population density might not be the driving factor then you also have to admit its probably not the relatively minor differences in the approach to policy within the UK itself.

To illustrate this point the region in the UK that has the lowest covid related death is the Southwest of England (153.4 per 100k) but England also has the region with the highest deaths (North West at
293 per 100k). Both these regions have larger populations than any of the other UK nations and both had the same public health policies set directly by the UK government.

Pop density is not a driver for case numbers per se, there are countries with higher pop density than the UK that have lower case numbers and infection rates. Also pop density is a bit of a difficult thing to measure - just by looking at regions or areas doesn't give you a true measure of pop density. For example, I worked in a large, busy modern open plan office but after covid we limited occupancy to 25% so you could say we lowered pop density in that office - however if everyone sat together, unmasked, close to each other in one corner, under the same ventilation fan and didn't open windows then the risks of covid spreading would be many times higher than if they wore masks, spread out, opened windows and each sat under a different ventilation fan. Behaviours, mitigation factors, adherence to PH advice, etc are the key factors.

The difference in case numbers in areas with similar pop density is more to do with the mitigation factors in place and how much people adhere to them. So those countries like Japan, as said above, had a very cautious approach from the beginning and have had a very high level of compliance with PH measures. Pop density in Japan is higher but case numbers and deaths are lower than the UK.

An example closer to home - Netherlands also has a higher pop density than England but has about 50% of the deaths that England has seen.

[JM2K6]

Over the summer of 2020 Scottish nationalism got a big boost by the perception that the devolved government had handled the epidemic much better than the the UK government had handled it in England (which as of yet has no devolved government) based on case numbers. This lead to the claim by by Nicola Sturgeon that the virus was effectively eliminated over the summer of 2020 in Scotland only to be reseeded by visitors from England (the former based on incorrect data and the second a fairly scurrilous claim by a politician claiming respectability).

Of course subsequent events have undermined this narrative and subsequently the comparable metrics (deaths with CV19 on the certificate) and total cases have fallen broadly into line with each other (particularity given in population and density terms England is quite a different proposition to the other UK nations).

Pop density doesn't drive/explain differences in case numbers - compare us with Japan for instance.

Japan is the comparison no one wants to touch (Cummings was right about the 'asians are weird' mindset that partially explains this).

All that said, I think pop density does help to explain faster spread in the UK than other Western European nations.

Population density does affect it, particularly at the top end, but it goes hand in hand with the measures in place to restrict movement / gatherings. There's been some decent studies on this, but basically it's nowhere near as simple as "higher density = more Covid" and has to be considered with restrictions in mind. Other countries seem to have done a better job of mitigating the problems that highly dense centres of population cause.

[Sandstorm]

I was in Cambridge on Monday and it was first day back in town for all the students. Hardly any of them were wearing masks, even the Asian kids weren’t bothering.

Older people were maybe 50% masked, but the younger gen were like….meh innit.

[tc27]

To be clear I am in agreement population density does not = more covid or at least the relationship is way more complicated.

Cleary even in dense urban populations people can avoid or mitigate the proximity needed for aerosol spreading.

[Paddington Bear]

I was in Cambridge on Monday and it was first day back in town for all the students. Hardly any of them were wearing masks, even the Asian kids weren’t bothering.

Older people were maybe 50% masked, but the younger gen were like….meh innit.

Are you referencing whilst being outside? As there's pretty much no reason to wear a mask outside.

[Sandstorm]

I was in Cambridge on Monday and it was first day back in town for all the students. Hardly any of them were wearing masks, even the Asian kids weren’t bothering.

Older people were maybe 50% masked, but the younger gen were like….meh innit.

Are you referencing whilst being outside? As there's pretty much no reason to wear a mask outside.

Nope. Shops, restaurants, bars and trains.

[Calculon]

They accept South African passports and other documents.

That there is suddenly doubt cast on the ability of South Africa to regulate and control proof of vaccination is insulting and I'm inclined to feel it has its roots, if not in outright racism, certainly in the perception that the Nations listed as untrustworthy are inferior. In spite of Sandy's protestations.

That doesn't explain Kenya moving though, does it. I really think it's the simple fact that the SA government have been generally shite and the Kenyans have been generally pretty good.

The UK also does not accept Kenyan vaccine certificates though. I don't know which countries accept the Kenyan vaccine certificates but it seems all countries accept the SA ones except for the UK.

You won't find any saffa on here who disagree that the SA government are a bunch of incompetent crooks with almost no exceptions but its still managed to fully vaccinate about 8 or 9 times more of its population than Kenya has. Kenya also does not come close to our ability to sequence, track and discover any potential new strains.

edit: good piece in The Times on SA remaining on the red list

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/travel/comme ... e-red-list

It's actually a disgraceful decision but even more so is the UK high commission in Pretoria putting out tweets containing fake covid information that serves to increase vaccine hesitancy in South Africa. It's a pity our government is so useless or apathetic about it that it won't bring them to task.

Unsurprising u-turn from the UK government, taken of the red list and vaccine certificates (SA and others) now recognised.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58833088

[dpedin]

As predicted RSV running about 40-50% higher in Scotland at the moment. Paediatrics ED are very busy but coping. Thankfully RSV numbers aren't yet as bad as was feared in worse case scenarios.

Still real concerns about winter and flu season and its impact on NHS. Staffing is at crisis point with many staff just knackered and lots of staffing retiring before changes in pension kick in in April. In Scotland consultant vacancies are running at 9% and nursing is at 7% - in England consultant vacancies are 7% but nursing running at 10%. All these figures are likely to be an underestimate of true situation and are based on existing staffing levels which were already dangerously low even if all the vacancies are filled. However a % of these existing nursing vacancies will be filled temporarily from internally run nurse banks. Nurse recruitment from EU countries has collapsed in last few years, from 9,400 in 2016 to 810 to year ending in March 2021.Many boards in Scotland who relied on medical recruitment from EU ie Grampian are now struggling badly to recruit post Brexit.

UK covid case numbers still kicking around 40k per day and deaths running at a weekly rate of about double that in comparable European neighbours ie France, Italy, Germany, etc.

[Sandstorm]

UK covid case numbers still kicking around 40k per day and deaths running at a weekly rate of about double that in comparable European neighbours ie France, Italy, Germany, etc.

Friends in Germany are horrified at how blasé UK is about the Covid death rate right now. Can’t believe we have basically decided it’s all over already.

[fishfoodie]

UK covid case numbers still kicking around 40k per day and deaths running at a weekly rate of about double that in comparable European neighbours ie France, Italy, Germany, etc.

Friends in Germany are horrified at how blasé UK is about the Covid death rate right now. Can’t believe we have basically decided it’s all over already.

Well these are the geniuses that gave the; "herd immunity", idea, more than the 3 seconds of thought; before deciding that looking up a rope wasn't an improbably outcome, for themselves.

[mat the expat]

UK covid case numbers still kicking around 40k per day and deaths running at a weekly rate of about double that in comparable European neighbours ie France, Italy, Germany, etc.

Friends in Germany are horrified at how blasé UK is about the Covid death rate right now. Can’t believe we have basically decided it’s all over already.

The NSW State Premier has just basically "let her rip" the same way as the UK....

He's an Opus Dei 39 year old with 6 kids....

[FalseBayFC]

UK covid case numbers still kicking around 40k per day and deaths running at a weekly rate of about double that in comparable European neighbours ie France, Italy, Germany, etc.

Friends in Germany are horrified at how blasé UK is about the Covid death rate right now. Can’t believe we have basically decided it’s all over already.

Well these are the geniuses that gave the; "herd immunity", idea, more than the 3 seconds of thought; before deciding that looking up a rope wasn't an improbably outcome, for themselves.

In South Africa we have relaxed restrictions to a light level 1. Covid fatigue means that this is virtually all shields down. But also our infections are down to 200 per day and deaths are 25 a day. And this with only 20 percent vaccination rate.

All schools are open, pubs and restaurants going great guns, social distancing and mask wearing is very loosely adhered to.

What puzzles me is how a wave can drop so dramatically. Is this not some evidence of herd immunity through infection?

[tabascoboy]

Covid: UK start to pandemic worst public health failure ever, MPs say

The UK's failure to do more to stop Covid spreading early in the pandemic was one of the worst ever public health failures, a report by MPs says.

The government approach - backed by its scientists - was to try to manage the situation and in effect achieve herd immunity by infection, it said.

This led to a delay in introducing the first lockdown, costing lives.

But the report by the cross-party group said there had been successes too - in particular the vaccination programme.

It described the whole approach - from the research and development through to the rollout of the jabs - as "one of the most effective initiatives in UK history".

The report predominantly focuses on the response to the pandemic in England. The committee did not look at steps taken individually by Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

[tc27]

I think the decisions in the spring on 2020 are at least mitigated by the fact the politicians where following the scientific advice (flawed as it was).

In my view the failure to react to the second wave in the Autumn until it was far too late was far less excusable - waffling on about saving Christmas ETC

[Slick]

I think the decisions in the spring on 2020 are at least mitigated by the fact the politicians where following the scientific advice (flawed as it was).

In my view the failure to react to the second wave in the Autumn until it was far too late was far less excusable - waffling on about saving Christmas ETC

Yup, totally agree. No one really knew what they were doing at the beginning and there was plenty of conflicting advice coming from scientists.

[tabascoboy]

There are many issues though behind the simple headline e.g.

Greg Clark [ Con MP ], chairman of the Science and Technology Committee that co-authored the report, says it is doing the "painful" work in trying to "squeeze out the lessons" from the government's handling of the pandemic.

Asked what the report found on why the government delayed locking the country down, Clark says one "mistake" was the "assumption" that people wouldn't obey lockdown rules for a long period of time and that the harshest restrictions could only be brought in at the last minute to ensure maximum compliance and effect.

"What we actually discovered in practice was that people were actually perfectly prepared to follow instructions, to stay at home, because they realised the importance of it," he tells BBC Breakfast.

Clark says there also wasn't enough testing capacity at the outset - which left the country "in the dark" on the Covid picture in the community - and the UK should have been quicker to mobilise it.

"The operational response of NHS test and trace was very poor and very slow and that really hampered our initial response," he adds.

The report also discusses whether the UK was quick enough to close its borders.

"The UK did not impose blanket or rigorous border controls at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic as compared to other countries, particularly in East and South East Asia," the report says.

"Instead, the UK implemented light-touch border controls only on countries and regions where there was a recorded high incidence rate. While the UK initially focused on China, Iran, South Korea and Italy, a significant number of cases came from elsewhere.

"A study found that 33% of cases during the first wave were introduced from Spain and 29% were introduced from France.

"The number of seeding events that occurred early in the pandemic, coupled with the lack of data, made the lockdown almost inevitable.

"By contrast, other countries implemented more rigorous border controls which were more effective at suppressing the virus and preventing the need for long and repeated lockdowns.

"However, even though it is not straightforward to make direct comparisons between countries, and it is yet to be seen how countries like New Zealand will fare when their borders are opened, it is reasonable to say that a more precautionary approach would have been beneficial at the start of the pandemic."

It's true of course though what they say about hindsight

[Margin__Walker]

I think the decisions in the spring on 2020 are at least mitigated by the fact the politicians where following the scientific advice (flawed as it was).

In my view the failure to react to the second wave in the Autumn until it was far too late was far less excusable - waffling on about saving Christmas ETC

Yup, totally agree. No one really knew what they were doing at the beginning and there was plenty of conflicting advice coming from scientists.

100%. Mistaken as it was, you can understand the first one.

The delays in the Autumn (and December) were a complete mess though. People need to be held accountable for that when all is said and done. They weren't operating in the dark when those decisions were made.

[Calculon]

Friends in Germany are horrified at how blasé UK is about the Covid death rate right now. Can’t believe we have basically decided it’s all over already.

Well these are the geniuses that gave the; "herd immunity", idea, more than the 3 seconds of thought; before deciding that looking up a rope wasn't an improbably outcome, for themselves.

In South Africa we have relaxed restrictions to a light level 1. Covid fatigue means that this is virtually all shields down. But also our infections are down to 200 per day and deaths are 25 a day. And this with only 20 percent vaccination rate.

All schools are open, pubs and restaurants going great guns, social distancing and mask wearing is very loosely adhered to.

What puzzles me is how a wave can drop so dramatically. Is this not some evidence of herd immunity through infection?

Could be, but we had the same dramatic drop after the first and second wave

[Raggs]

I think the decisions in the spring on 2020 are at least mitigated by the fact the politicians where following the scientific advice (flawed as it was).

In my view the failure to react to the second wave in the Autumn until it was far too late was far less excusable - waffling on about saving Christmas ETC

Yup, totally agree. No one really knew what they were doing at the beginning and there was plenty of conflicting advice coming from scientists.

100%. Mistaken as it was, you can understand the first one.

The delays in the Autumn (and December) were a complete mess though. People need to be held accountable for that when all is said and done. They weren't operating in the dark when those decisions were made.

Can definitely forgive the slow reaction in early 2020. Dislike that we ignored testing (unlike Germany) quite so much. However the later lockdowns were a farce. Opening schools for a single day a particular highlight of stupidity. They were only closed I suspect because so many parents simply refused to send their kids (I know I did).

[Mahoney]

In my view the failure to react to the second wave in the Autumn until it was far too late was far less excusable - waffling on about saving Christmas ETC

The care homes testing in Spring 2020 was pretty dreadful - we essentially protected the NHS by killing off a high proportion of care home residents. And people knew it was happening.

Other than that I agree, in the early stages they thought they were following the science, but "the science" had incorrectly assumed the modelling of an influenza pandemic was appropriate.

The royally fucked up the second half of 2020. It was obvious in October 2020 that we needed a firebreak over half term. And it was obvious in November/early December 2020 that Christmas was not happening and a severe lockdown was going to be inevitable, and that the earlier it happened the better.

It's not hindsight - this was a common sentiment: