4 ms·

The UK government did a lot wrong, but we still don't know what a "competent strategy for social distancing and containment" actually looks like. Half the time

The UK government did a lot wrong, but we still don't know what a "competent strategy for social distancing and containment" actually looks like. Half the time we look at a country as being a good example of this, things fall apart within a few weeks... When a single person can infect hunreds of others, or none, there's a lot of randomness that models cannot easily account for. There are still a large number of infections where we don't know how the person was infected.

harry8 6y ago
#nzhellhole looks pretty competent to me. Does it not to you? The UK dreams about having a day as good as their biggest disaster. They were very, very conservative in their approach.
- toyg 6y ago
  NZ is easy mode though. They are not a nexus of international travel and commerce, and their border is quite hard (an ocean). They did well, for sure, but the UK or any other European country could not have followed the exact same strategy - except maybe Iceland or Far Oer.
  - renaudg 6y ago
    It's not like Great Britain is an island, after all. :)
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - nyokodo 6y ago
      There are no tunnels between NZ and anywhere which can’t be said for Britain where the Channel Tunnel carried >10 million passengers per year in 2019. UK airports have traffic numbers 7 or 8 times as high as NZ airports. Sea transport and shipping into UK ports is far greater and easier than to NZ. I’m very glad NZ is COVID free but they got lucky by not having much community spread before the first lockdown and closing the border, and they are lucky by geography in this case.
    - neilsense 6y ago
      Are you being purposefully silly in comparing the UK and NZ? You must realise there is a huge population difference, difference in number of elderly, excellent infrastructure both intra- and inter-city that allows spreading quickly, and between Heathrow + Gatwick, some of the busiest airports in the world that act as a hub between the West and the East. What the UK has gone through is unique to the UK and it is hard to easily compare it to other countries. It's bad, don't get wrong, and I wish that travel lockdowns would have happened sooner, but let's not ignore a huge amount of relevant data so you can have a dig.
PJDK 6y ago
Portugal is a terrifying example of this. They got through 2020 extremely successfully, but have suddenly been hit extremely hard. They've now had as many deaths in 2021 as they did in all of 2020.

harry8 6y ago

#nzhellhole looks pretty competent to me. Does it not to you? The UK dreams about having a day as good as their biggest disaster. They were very, very conservative in their approach.

toyg 6y ago
NZ is easy mode though. They are not a nexus of international travel and commerce, and their border is quite hard (an ocean). They did well, for sure, but the UK or any other European country could not have followed the exact same strategy - except maybe Iceland or Far Oer.
- renaudg 6y ago
  It's not like Great Britain is an island, after all. :)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - nyokodo 6y ago
    There are no tunnels between NZ and anywhere which can’t be said for Britain where the Channel Tunnel carried >10 million passengers per year in 2019. UK airports have traffic numbers 7 or 8 times as high as NZ airports. Sea transport and shipping into UK ports is far greater and easier than to NZ. I’m very glad NZ is COVID free but they got lucky by not having much community spread before the first lockdown and closing the border, and they are lucky by geography in this case.
  - neilsense 6y ago
    Are you being purposefully silly in comparing the UK and NZ? You must realise there is a huge population difference, difference in number of elderly, excellent infrastructure both intra- and inter-city that allows spreading quickly, and between Heathrow + Gatwick, some of the busiest airports in the world that act as a hub between the West and the East. What the UK has gone through is unique to the UK and it is hard to easily compare it to other countries. It's bad, don't get wrong, and I wish that travel lockdowns would have happened sooner, but let's not ignore a huge amount of relevant data so you can have a dig.

PJDK 6y ago

Portugal is a terrifying example of this. They got through 2020 extremely successfully, but have suddenly been hit extremely hard. They've now had as many deaths in 2021 as they did in all of 2020.