Why Did the UK Have Such a Bad Covid-19 Epidemic?
- Thread starter Mrs Trellis
- Start date
Yes. The EU has being monitoring it itself. West is bad, Central OKish, East is fine.
UK's big problem was the staggering number of Brits who fly on holiday all year round. In fact I think the UK has about the highest number of flights per person in the world, certainly in Europe. in March it was 80,000 a day just from Spain I believe. No chance of containment. And all those people have to come back regardless, and it isn't exactly the group prone to being told what to do.
UK's big problem was the staggering number of Brits who fly on holiday all year round. In fact I think the UK has about the highest number of flights per person in the world, certainly in Europe. in March it was 80,000 a day just from Spain I believe. No chance of containment. And all those people have to come back regardless, and it isn't exactly the group prone to being told what to do.
TheBitterEnd
Well-known member
Fjell said:
Lies, damn lies and statistics. See this
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Russia has reported about the same number of cases per million population as the UK but only has 10% of the deaths per million. Are the Russians so much healthier than the British? Is the Russian health care system so much better than the NHS? Of course there is some variation but 90% difference? The other thing about popularists is they are more likely to skew the statistics, or more precisely those working for them, if they don't want a spell of "re-education" are more inclined to under-report
pwhole
Well-known member
It's a fact that has to be faced and soon, but international travel, in the way that the west (and east) has been accustomed to, is going to have to slow down if we want to avoid future repercussions, as it's clearly the primary case of transmission on a macro scale, and has pretty much enabled the entire planet to become infected in a month. That's serious. Obviously there are many factors driving this travel apart from cheap flights, which allow lots of people from very average incomes to travel abroad at least once a year and often many, many times a year. The number of Euro-based stag or hen weekends, for example shows it's as easy to go to Prague to get shitfaced as it is to go to Leeds - and it won't take you that much longer to get home either and cheaper than a black cab.
I haven't travelled abroad much recently thanks to caving, but it was a joy to be able to go to California 'regularly' 25 years ago at an easily-affordable price, even for a peasant like me. I'd really like to go to Europe for a trip soon, but with 14 days quarantine it's hardly practical if the trip is only 7 days. Those endless EU-country business trips for one short meeting where you 'may as well' stay over for a night and have some fun in a city that won't remember you. Like a bat out of hell...
But also the wealthier, older group - pensioners, who have all the time in the world, and plenty of money, to travel around the globe on planes quickly, but also for weeks or months at a time on cruise ships. These can export and import viruses in slow-motion, as we've seen, where gradually the whole ship gets infected and no-one can get off, hundreds of miles from dry land, with ports where the locals definitely don't want them now. It was ironic that a vessel designed to be so comfortable that the passengers never want to leave it then became some dystopian prison that the passengers couldn't leave, even if they wanted to. It's all going to have to be re-thought - until we have a vaccine or everyone who's going to die from it has died, leaving the immune to have a big party - after the funerals of course, not before.
My dad's old company pension scheme is groaning under the strain of all their ex-employees not dying yet. He earns more than I do a month and he's 83. Many are on endless holidays at sea, but I doubt they spend much money on their brief trips on land. What does an 83 year-old cruiser need to take home as a souvenir? Only themselves now.
In the UK, as in the other countries badly affected, we have shocking states of unfitness in the adult population, with obesity being the most obvious. What's less obvious about obesity in particular, is that lungs don't grow larger as the rest of the body grows larger. So for a guy who should weigh 11 stones but now weighs 15 stones, his lungs are now severely undersized, as all the extra body mass still has to be fed oxygen - from an also-too-small heart, and in blood vessels that will be struggling to cope with the pressure needed to get all the blood around this extra volume and back to his struggling heart. That's before you factor in the poor muscle development from no exercise, ever, and the ever-increasing alcohol consumption, which doesn't help anything really.
The really sad aspect to all this is that many people have died who had underlying illnesses, but that weren't remotely life-threatening to them, thanks to advances in treatments and better care, support and awareness of disability, infirmity or just old age. But add Covid-19 and they just folded, including one of my friends now. Knowing that the lockdown was deliberately delayed (and is now being deliberately prematurely relaxed) to afford political capital to these revolting people is making my blood boil on a daily basis, but that's for the judges to decide eventually. I hope it's a long one.
So that's my answer to the question. Though I may think of more later
I haven't travelled abroad much recently thanks to caving, but it was a joy to be able to go to California 'regularly' 25 years ago at an easily-affordable price, even for a peasant like me. I'd really like to go to Europe for a trip soon, but with 14 days quarantine it's hardly practical if the trip is only 7 days. Those endless EU-country business trips for one short meeting where you 'may as well' stay over for a night and have some fun in a city that won't remember you. Like a bat out of hell...
But also the wealthier, older group - pensioners, who have all the time in the world, and plenty of money, to travel around the globe on planes quickly, but also for weeks or months at a time on cruise ships. These can export and import viruses in slow-motion, as we've seen, where gradually the whole ship gets infected and no-one can get off, hundreds of miles from dry land, with ports where the locals definitely don't want them now. It was ironic that a vessel designed to be so comfortable that the passengers never want to leave it then became some dystopian prison that the passengers couldn't leave, even if they wanted to. It's all going to have to be re-thought - until we have a vaccine or everyone who's going to die from it has died, leaving the immune to have a big party - after the funerals of course, not before.
My dad's old company pension scheme is groaning under the strain of all their ex-employees not dying yet. He earns more than I do a month and he's 83. Many are on endless holidays at sea, but I doubt they spend much money on their brief trips on land. What does an 83 year-old cruiser need to take home as a souvenir? Only themselves now.
In the UK, as in the other countries badly affected, we have shocking states of unfitness in the adult population, with obesity being the most obvious. What's less obvious about obesity in particular, is that lungs don't grow larger as the rest of the body grows larger. So for a guy who should weigh 11 stones but now weighs 15 stones, his lungs are now severely undersized, as all the extra body mass still has to be fed oxygen - from an also-too-small heart, and in blood vessels that will be struggling to cope with the pressure needed to get all the blood around this extra volume and back to his struggling heart. That's before you factor in the poor muscle development from no exercise, ever, and the ever-increasing alcohol consumption, which doesn't help anything really.
The really sad aspect to all this is that many people have died who had underlying illnesses, but that weren't remotely life-threatening to them, thanks to advances in treatments and better care, support and awareness of disability, infirmity or just old age. But add Covid-19 and they just folded, including one of my friends now. Knowing that the lockdown was deliberately delayed (and is now being deliberately prematurely relaxed) to afford political capital to these revolting people is making my blood boil on a daily basis, but that's for the judges to decide eventually. I hope it's a long one.
So that's my answer to the question. Though I may think of more later
I think it is not true that lockdown was delayed for any sort of purely political reason. I remember it being delayed for 3-4 days just to get it through parliament. But it was already happening anyway. It's pretty tough to make 10 million people unemployed based on almost no data, but they did. I also think Johnson, for all his other manifest faults, is basically a liberal and does not want to lock people up. I didn't vote for him, but i do think that what happened in March was pretty much a perfect storm. There was no slow increase from a single point. Hundreds, probably thousands arrived infected already. If they weren't infected when they left places like Spain, they were by the time the plane landed.
RobinGriffiths
Well-known member
I remember opening the 10 or so doors between the car park and my place of work with my foot, knee, elbow, or by cunningly using the 'soft close' mechanism at the top of the door (which could amputate a finger if due care was not applied) since January. It was obvious this was coming. And yet, it was 2 months later that lockdown came. We're now three months in. Surely that initial 2 months could have been put to better use.
pwhole
Well-known member
I was working in London from the 22nd Feb to the day before lockdown, coming back to Sheffield for two days a week, and from the second week we were there, the difference was palpable - the flood of people out of Liverpool station onto Bishopsgate every morning just dried up in a few days - and a guy working in an office in the building we're working on near Moorgate got Covid-19 and left in a hurry, and then the building emptied rather quickly. There was no-one left by about the 12th. I met an old friend for a drink on The Strand on the 9th March and the place was deserted - Piccadilly Circus the same. We walked across the river on the Charing Cross footbridge and were the only people on it, there and back. It was kind of romantic with the skyline and all, but only in the sense of some light relief midway through a zombie movie.
The Whitechapel area, where we were staying, gradually got quieter and all the shops and food stalls on Brick Lane started closing down. We spent the last two weeks pretty much working on our own on the roof of an empty building in an empty city with no people anywhere. So it was clearly being imposed by the public on themselves, rather than imposed by government. Every time I would come back to Sheffield it seemed as though coronavirus didn't exist on my street apart from most of the shops being shut. By the time 'official lockdown' came we'd already packed up and left town - being in London meant we were operating ahead of the curve and so the office knew what was going on and we'd planned our escape the week before.
Having just spent the last week in London on the same restarted job - it's exactly the same. Almost deserted. Still no tenants in the building and not many people about. I took the Tube yesterday from Farringdon to Baker Street (via Kings Cross/St. Pancras, hardly an insignificant stop) at 5pm and was the only person in my carriage - the same coming back. Walked down the South Bank on Monday evening at 9pm and apart from a few skateboarders and snogging couples, it was just me and the river.
Obviously a lot of this is just caused by no tourists, as most Londoners have no need to hang out in these places, and just do it in their local area instead. It shows just how many tourists are normally in London if it's this empty without them. But I get the feeling that most people, certainly all my friends that I've contacted, are still observing 'proper' lockdown, and haven't used public transport, are working from home (they're not rich executives, just have laptops), not travelling far etc. Everyone's doing 2m queues where they have to that I've seen. As a result it's now got one of the lowest infection rates in the country. I'm back in Sheffield now and it looks like coronavirus doesn't exist again on my street.
We go back on Saturday just in time for the pubs to re-open - I don't really drink booze so it's not something I should really comment on, but suffice to say I won't be going near one, and neither will any of my friends, as I made sure to ask them all.
The Whitechapel area, where we were staying, gradually got quieter and all the shops and food stalls on Brick Lane started closing down. We spent the last two weeks pretty much working on our own on the roof of an empty building in an empty city with no people anywhere. So it was clearly being imposed by the public on themselves, rather than imposed by government. Every time I would come back to Sheffield it seemed as though coronavirus didn't exist on my street apart from most of the shops being shut. By the time 'official lockdown' came we'd already packed up and left town - being in London meant we were operating ahead of the curve and so the office knew what was going on and we'd planned our escape the week before.
Having just spent the last week in London on the same restarted job - it's exactly the same. Almost deserted. Still no tenants in the building and not many people about. I took the Tube yesterday from Farringdon to Baker Street (via Kings Cross/St. Pancras, hardly an insignificant stop) at 5pm and was the only person in my carriage - the same coming back. Walked down the South Bank on Monday evening at 9pm and apart from a few skateboarders and snogging couples, it was just me and the river.
Obviously a lot of this is just caused by no tourists, as most Londoners have no need to hang out in these places, and just do it in their local area instead. It shows just how many tourists are normally in London if it's this empty without them. But I get the feeling that most people, certainly all my friends that I've contacted, are still observing 'proper' lockdown, and haven't used public transport, are working from home (they're not rich executives, just have laptops), not travelling far etc. Everyone's doing 2m queues where they have to that I've seen. As a result it's now got one of the lowest infection rates in the country. I'm back in Sheffield now and it looks like coronavirus doesn't exist again on my street.
We go back on Saturday just in time for the pubs to re-open - I don't really drink booze so it's not something I should really comment on, but suffice to say I won't be going near one, and neither will any of my friends, as I made sure to ask them all.
Duck ditch
New member
I think, we as a species hadn?t the patience or will power that was needed. Success on a country level came with how strictly they enforced the lockdown.
We in the UK may well have gone into lockdown a week or two too slow. A proper shut down would still have done it. The vast majority of us did. Not all of us. We also had tens of thousands coming into the country, getting on public transport, going to the supermarket before locking down.
What was and is needed is global cooperation. It?s the same with the environmental crisis.
Of course it doesn?t help that all the big (population) countries of the world are currently run by selfish xenophobic governments. Most of which were voted for.
Great timing by the virus.
Will we as a species learn anything and work together on such big issues?
I would like to ditch the flag waving for a start.
We in the UK may well have gone into lockdown a week or two too slow. A proper shut down would still have done it. The vast majority of us did. Not all of us. We also had tens of thousands coming into the country, getting on public transport, going to the supermarket before locking down.
What was and is needed is global cooperation. It?s the same with the environmental crisis.
Of course it doesn?t help that all the big (population) countries of the world are currently run by selfish xenophobic governments. Most of which were voted for.
Great timing by the virus.
Will we as a species learn anything and work together on such big issues?
I would like to ditch the flag waving for a start.
JoshW
Well-known member
Fjell said:
I was in Vietnam prior to lockdown, could see lockdown occurring in other places and deaths escalating in the UK, had time to book flights, get back and still have a few days back in the country before lockdown kicked in. So I don't buy the it was only a few days whilst they got it through gov.
The UK Gov had all the same information available to the rest of us to see how quickly the virus was escalating in other countries, and had the opportunity to lock down at least a couple of weeks earlier.
You come back to a lack of preparedness for something like this happening, and before someone says it unprecedented is not the same as unpredictable. Things like this had been predicted. The government even had their own pandemic workforce that they disbanded..
Speleotron
Member
The herd immunity plan was actually put in place long before Boris or the Tories got into power, it was our standard pandemic plan which was formulated under Blair I think. The problem was it assumed it would be a flu pandemic and didn't account for the fact that Covid seems to hospitalise people more than flu.
I think what will come out is that the UK was over-prepared for a pandemic, with a spiffing plan ready to roll. And indeed it was put in motion. For what turned out to be the wrong disease. There was an audible grinding of gears in early March as paradigms were shifted.
In my experience it is extremely hard to get the Civil Service to change it?s mind quickly. A few weeks is how long it takes to order the tea and biscuits for a meeting to discuss a meeting. Took me two years to insert a new shipping lane in the North Sea even after they agreed it was a good idea for all concerned. Tea and biscuits were a notable feature of my life for a while.
In my experience it is extremely hard to get the Civil Service to change it?s mind quickly. A few weeks is how long it takes to order the tea and biscuits for a meeting to discuss a meeting. Took me two years to insert a new shipping lane in the North Sea even after they agreed it was a good idea for all concerned. Tea and biscuits were a notable feature of my life for a while.
