6 ms·

The UK response has been terrible in all respects. Please don't sugar coat it.

Angostura 6y ago
Nope, in many repects it's been pretty good. The respects that it has been very poor at was: * Being complacent about the country's testing capacity * stopping testing outside of hospitals once the containment phase was deemed over * PPE logistics. (tough global problem) * Support for care-homes. * Westminster's lack of care when it comes to coordinating the loosening of lock-down with the devolved countries It was arguable that they should have started lock-down earlier, but given that the number of acute beds in the NHS wasn't overwhelmed, that's arguable. If you look at stuff like the furlough scheme, support for individuals and freelancers so people don't suffer too much economically by being locked down, it a pretty good and swift response.
- TLightful 6y ago
  So, "nope", but, actually, "yeah". * unclear and delayed response to pandemic, * frequent lying and misinformation put out by ministers, * considering herd immunity with no vaccine, The list goes on and on ... Yes, the furlough scheme, is decent. But smacks of just throwing money at the problem to save the day. It's not a coordinated response, and we'll be paying for it for generations. I repeat my assertion. Thanks.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  Yet we still have the worst death rate in Europe. Why was Germany so much better off than us.
  - arethuza 6y ago
    Isn't the answer at the moment "we don't know" - I'm no fan of the current government but I don't think it helps blaming them before someone has analysed the relevant facts.
    - jansan 6y ago
      Exactly. There is still a lot that we do not understand. And scientists have not impressed either, with theri lack of knowledge about spreading of the virus. What I find remarkable is that eastern European countries like Hungary, Poland and Czechia have done remarkably well during this crisis. Also, countries like India and Sri Lanka have barely been affected. What are the reasons?
    - Angostura 6y ago
      Yes, I think this is the correct answer. There are so many factors. And absolutely not a fan of the current government, but I reccognise that they are trying to work in very very difficult circumstance.
  - SiempreViernes 6y ago
    Probably it's closely connected to hygiene practices in the care-homes.
    - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
      The care sector has been under extreme financial pressure since the financial crisis. It's not surprising they have struggled.
  - rvz 6y ago
    Not only they tested early, they have the capacity to test ten if not hundreds of thousands of people a day and have laboratories spread across the country working with the government, rather than against it [0] Sure the UK was slow at testing but there are still ways of getting a private testing kit for yourself in the UK. Thus, it's very easy to blame the UK government for the high death rates and slow response when you have people risking their own health by ignoring government advice across the UK and not taking their own responsibility to be socially distant, i.e clapping for carers whilst being very very close together. Therefore in the UK, it's everyone's fault for not taking this pandemic seriously enough (All the UK media outlets comparing it to the flu and SARS 2003 death rates), unlike other countries locking down their borders and testing very early. [0] https://www.thelocal.de/20200429/german-coronavirus-testing-capacity-increases-to-900000-a-week https://www.thelocal.de/20200429/german-coronavirus-testing-...
    - jfgg 6y ago
      UK has a public health service, why would people pay for a private test?
      - rvz 6y ago
        > why would people pay for a private test? The NHS already has its inefficiencies whilst being a public health service and is already slow enough to get an appointment given its long waiting times to see the GP which is why some go to private healthcare to bypass this.
    - DanBC 6y ago
      > but there are still ways of getting a private testing kit for yourself in the UK. If you have a private test, and that says you have covid-19, and then you die from covid, your death is not counted as a covid death in the daily figures. It might eventually be counted as a covid death by ONS. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/about https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/about > The UK total is not the sum of the 4 National totals as the pillar 2 cases cannot currently be included in the National totals. All other data on this website are based only on cases detected through pillar 1. Information about the different pillars is available on GOV.UK.
  - CodeGlitch 6y ago
    This is my theory (I of course welcome feedback!): The UK has had a health crisis for 20+ years, and that is obesity / poor-diet / little-exercise. We are one (it not most?) obese country in Europe, and we are seeing people with diabetes and heart-conditions to be people at most risk of COVID-19. It will take a generation to put this right - and my hope is that people in the UK will realise they need to sort their health out in case COVID-XX comes around.
    - TLightful 6y ago
      Yes, good point. Must be contributory.
    - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
      I don't think it will make any difference to that, obesity isn't a problem of lack of education. People already know that they should eat more vegetables and less pizza.
  - dijksterhuis 6y ago
    You're looking at the total number of deaths, not the death rate per capita. Every country has a different population size which means the total number of deaths needs to be normalised in order to be comparable. Belgium has the highest death rate per million population in Europe - 79.25 The UK is 4th in Europe behind Belgium, Spain and then Italy. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality The fact we're 4th does warrant some concern as Spain and Italy were hit hard before us. But then all these death statistics are compiled using different definitions anyway, so there's no useful direct comparison right now. Belgium, for example, include all suspected covid deaths in their figures whereas the UK does not. So probably best not to jump to conclusions until some thorough and rigorous global modelling/analysis has taken place.
    - DanBC 6y ago
      Your link is talking about "confirmed cases". Belgium is high in that list because they do a lot of testing inside and outside hospital, and so many of the people who die of covid-19 have had a test to confirm that, and because Belgium is including deaths that happen outside hospital. The UK however has only just started testing people outside hospital, and has only just started including deaths outside hospital in its figures. (And even then, not all cases confirmed by tests are included. We have a complex system of "pillars" and only some of those are included). Yet, despite not including all deaths, we're still 4th in the table.
      - orwin 6y ago
        If you look at excess death rates, Belgium is still 1rst in europe (and UK second), both with over 60% a week ago. Within a small area with a >40% IR, the excess death rate reached 270% (in France), so it could be worse, but it still bad.
    - zelos 6y ago
      From the linked article Germany's per capita death rate is a fifth of the UK's.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- open-source-ux 6y ago
  "Nope, in many repects it's been pretty good" No, the Conservative government has shown a level of ineptitude that is off the scale. You list the areas where the government has failed - essentially everything that would have made a difference to the number of deaths. In March, the medical director of National Health Service England, Stephen Powis, said that if we were able to keep deaths below 20,000 then "we will have done very well in this epidemic." UK deaths have now reached 50,000+ and will likely rise further.
- DanBC 6y ago
  > but given that the number of acute beds in the NHS wasn't overwhelmed, that's arguable. The number of acute beds in the NHS was overwhelmed! They were converting operating theatres into ITUs; they dropped the nurse to patient ratios from 1:1 to 1:6; they cancelled elective surgeries to cope with the surge. The other thing they did is to tell care and nursing homes that elderly people with covid would not be admitted to hospital and would have to die in the home. They also discharged elderly people with suspected covid back to those homes.
  - Angostura 6y ago
    For some mesures of 'overwhelmed'. Obviously, the standard number of ITU beds wasn't going to be able to accomodate the pandemic, so yes they converted other facilities into ITU beds. The fact is that we didn't run out of these ITU beds and we easily could have.
SiempreViernes 6y ago
Please calibrate your scale, keeping in mind that you also need to grade US and Brazilian response on the low end.

Nope, in many repects it's been pretty good. The respects that it has been very poor at was: * Being complacent about the country's testing capacity * stopping testing outside of hospitals once the containment phase was deemed over * PPE logistics. (tough global problem) * Support for care-homes. * Westminster's lack of care when it comes to coordinating the loosening of lock-down with the devolved countries It was arguable that they should have started lock-down earlier, but given that the number of acute beds in the NHS wasn't overwhelmed, that's arguable. If you look at stuff like the furlough scheme, support for individuals and freelancers so people don't suffer too much economically by being locked down, it a pretty good and swift response.

TLightful 6y ago
So, "nope", but, actually, "yeah". * unclear and delayed response to pandemic, * frequent lying and misinformation put out by ministers, * considering herd immunity with no vaccine, The list goes on and on ... Yes, the furlough scheme, is decent. But smacks of just throwing money at the problem to save the day. It's not a coordinated response, and we'll be paying for it for generations. I repeat my assertion. Thanks.
tonyedgecombe 6y ago
Yet we still have the worst death rate in Europe. Why was Germany so much better off than us.
- arethuza 6y ago
  Isn't the answer at the moment "we don't know" - I'm no fan of the current government but I don't think it helps blaming them before someone has analysed the relevant facts.
  - jansan 6y ago
    Exactly. There is still a lot that we do not understand. And scientists have not impressed either, with theri lack of knowledge about spreading of the virus. What I find remarkable is that eastern European countries like Hungary, Poland and Czechia have done remarkably well during this crisis. Also, countries like India and Sri Lanka have barely been affected. What are the reasons?
  - Angostura 6y ago
    Yes, I think this is the correct answer. There are so many factors. And absolutely not a fan of the current government, but I reccognise that they are trying to work in very very difficult circumstance.
- SiempreViernes 6y ago
  Probably it's closely connected to hygiene practices in the care-homes.
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    The care sector has been under extreme financial pressure since the financial crisis. It's not surprising they have struggled.
- rvz 6y ago
  Not only they tested early, they have the capacity to test ten if not hundreds of thousands of people a day and have laboratories spread across the country working with the government, rather than against it [0] Sure the UK was slow at testing but there are still ways of getting a private testing kit for yourself in the UK. Thus, it's very easy to blame the UK government for the high death rates and slow response when you have people risking their own health by ignoring government advice across the UK and not taking their own responsibility to be socially distant, i.e clapping for carers whilst being very very close together. Therefore in the UK, it's everyone's fault for not taking this pandemic seriously enough (All the UK media outlets comparing it to the flu and SARS 2003 death rates), unlike other countries locking down their borders and testing very early. [0] https://www.thelocal.de/20200429/german-coronavirus-testing-capacity-increases-to-900000-a-week https://www.thelocal.de/20200429/german-coronavirus-testing-...
  - jfgg 6y ago
    UK has a public health service, why would people pay for a private test?
    - rvz 6y ago
      > why would people pay for a private test? The NHS already has its inefficiencies whilst being a public health service and is already slow enough to get an appointment given its long waiting times to see the GP which is why some go to private healthcare to bypass this.
  - DanBC 6y ago
    > but there are still ways of getting a private testing kit for yourself in the UK. If you have a private test, and that says you have covid-19, and then you die from covid, your death is not counted as a covid death in the daily figures. It might eventually be counted as a covid death by ONS. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/about https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/about > The UK total is not the sum of the 4 National totals as the pillar 2 cases cannot currently be included in the National totals. All other data on this website are based only on cases detected through pillar 1. Information about the different pillars is available on GOV.UK.
- CodeGlitch 6y ago
  This is my theory (I of course welcome feedback!): The UK has had a health crisis for 20+ years, and that is obesity / poor-diet / little-exercise. We are one (it not most?) obese country in Europe, and we are seeing people with diabetes and heart-conditions to be people at most risk of COVID-19. It will take a generation to put this right - and my hope is that people in the UK will realise they need to sort their health out in case COVID-XX comes around.
  - TLightful 6y ago
    Yes, good point. Must be contributory.
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    I don't think it will make any difference to that, obesity isn't a problem of lack of education. People already know that they should eat more vegetables and less pizza.
- dijksterhuis 6y ago
  You're looking at the total number of deaths, not the death rate per capita. Every country has a different population size which means the total number of deaths needs to be normalised in order to be comparable. Belgium has the highest death rate per million population in Europe - 79.25 The UK is 4th in Europe behind Belgium, Spain and then Italy. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality The fact we're 4th does warrant some concern as Spain and Italy were hit hard before us. But then all these death statistics are compiled using different definitions anyway, so there's no useful direct comparison right now. Belgium, for example, include all suspected covid deaths in their figures whereas the UK does not. So probably best not to jump to conclusions until some thorough and rigorous global modelling/analysis has taken place.
  - DanBC 6y ago
    Your link is talking about "confirmed cases". Belgium is high in that list because they do a lot of testing inside and outside hospital, and so many of the people who die of covid-19 have had a test to confirm that, and because Belgium is including deaths that happen outside hospital. The UK however has only just started testing people outside hospital, and has only just started including deaths outside hospital in its figures. (And even then, not all cases confirmed by tests are included. We have a complex system of "pillars" and only some of those are included). Yet, despite not including all deaths, we're still 4th in the table.
    - orwin 6y ago
      If you look at excess death rates, Belgium is still 1rst in europe (and UK second), both with over 60% a week ago. Within a small area with a >40% IR, the excess death rate reached 270% (in France), so it could be worse, but it still bad.
  - zelos 6y ago
    From the linked article Germany's per capita death rate is a fifth of the UK's.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
open-source-ux 6y ago
"Nope, in many repects it's been pretty good" No, the Conservative government has shown a level of ineptitude that is off the scale. You list the areas where the government has failed - essentially everything that would have made a difference to the number of deaths. In March, the medical director of National Health Service England, Stephen Powis, said that if we were able to keep deaths below 20,000 then "we will have done very well in this epidemic." UK deaths have now reached 50,000+ and will likely rise further.
DanBC 6y ago
> but given that the number of acute beds in the NHS wasn't overwhelmed, that's arguable. The number of acute beds in the NHS was overwhelmed! They were converting operating theatres into ITUs; they dropped the nurse to patient ratios from 1:1 to 1:6; they cancelled elective surgeries to cope with the surge. The other thing they did is to tell care and nursing homes that elderly people with covid would not be admitted to hospital and would have to die in the home. They also discharged elderly people with suspected covid back to those homes.
- Angostura 6y ago
  For some mesures of 'overwhelmed'. Obviously, the standard number of ITU beds wasn't going to be able to accomodate the pandemic, so yes they converted other facilities into ITU beds. The fact is that we didn't run out of these ITU beds and we easily could have.

SiempreViernes 6y ago

Please calibrate your scale, keeping in mind that you also need to grade US and Brazilian response on the low end.