UK PM Johnson says 'open questions' on whether lockdown came too late

 

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson visits the Tollgate Medical Centre in Beckton, London, Britain July 24, 2020. Jeremy Selwyn/Pool via REUTERS

 

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday there were open questions as to whether lockdown was introduced too late, as COVID-19 was poorly understood in its early stages.

 

Asked whether lockdown came too late, Johnson said: "When you listen to the scientists, the questions that you've just asked are actually very open questions as far as they are concerned.

 

"This was something that was new, that we didn't understand in the way that we would have liked in the first few weeks and months, and ... the single thing that we didn't see at the beginning was the extent to which it was being transmitted asymptomatically from person to person," he told the BBC.

 

(Reporting by William James and Alistair Smout; editing by Stephen Addison)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-07-25

 

- Whatever you're going through, the Samaritans are here for you

- Follow Thaivisa on LINE for breaking COVID-19 updates

A gamble, does Britain stay open for business or not? 

Thats how I saw it and then a naive NHS and so called “experts” that clearly weren’t. 

Edited July 24, 20205 yr by twocatsmac

It was always going to be handled poorly with someone like Johnson in charge.

There's only small handful of countries in the world that have handled the crisis well. The remainder all need to be open to criticism and a full review to avoid repeat mistakes which cost lives and the economy so disastrously.

 

Those that followed the advice of WHO in the early stages are suffering badly.

11 minutes ago, Bkk Brian said:

There's only small handful of countries in the world that have handled the crisis well. The remainder all need to be open to criticism and a full review to avoid repeat mistakes which cost lives and the economy so disastrously.

 

Those that followed the advice of WHO in the early stages are suffering badly.

Yes, some handled well, some poorly. But there are degrees in that bad handling. USA and Brazil top the charts there, but also an island nation like UK is up there, with very late checks on passengers and other restrictions.

 

They were in a position to do relatively well, but made a mess of it. Countries with populists at the helm seem to have done a lot worse than more cohesive countries.

 

Regarding your who line, who had already changed its stance on what was happening and possible actions for quite some time, when some countries were still sticking to what they were doing. Probably thinking it was working since the infection count was not high yet. But the experts were on a different track already, and it took way too long and way too many deaths before adjustments were made.

 

I think there is a strong connection between the late change in attitude and the populist governments.

Edited July 25, 20205 yr by stevenl

Boris has been perfecting his French mime artiste trapped behind a pane of glass routine then .. Great stuff .. 

Whether or not lockdown had started a week earlier would had made little difference as this was too late.

 

The mid term school holidays in February was the period when the virus was brought into the UK enmasse. It was not realised at the time that the ski slopes of Austria and Italy were the breeding grounds for the virus.

1 hour ago, Rookiescot said:

It was always going to be handled poorly with someone like Johnson in charge.

Did Scotland lockdown any quicker?

1 hour ago, sungod said:

Did Scotland lockdown any quicker?

Scotland has handled the virus far better than England.

Its has been 8 days since we had a single death from corona.

Difficult balance. Too strict like Thailand and destroy the economy?

 

Or too lax and higher numbers?

 

If he shut down immediately he would be criticized as well. Imagine if he didn't shut down at all like one well known european country. He would be labelled a mass murderer by the leftists who simply hate his name, his accent and his schooling. 

2 hours ago, sungod said:

Did Scotland lockdown any quicker?

The devolved administrations were hamstrung by the fact that the chancellor has the purse strings. Until he announced his furlough scheme, there was no possibility for the devolved governments to impose a lockdown. 

For once I'm in total agreement with Mrs Sturgeons priorities, she has re-opened the pubs but kept gyms closed, such foresight.????????????

The usual bla-bla of any wannabe PM. 

It's just disgusting ????

1 hour ago, vogie said:

For once I'm in total agreement with Mrs Sturgeons priorities, she has re-opened the pubs but kept gyms closed, such foresight.????????????

A bit lame Vogie - England have had the pubs open for a while, and the BBC News today says gyms are being re-opened there.

Maybe Boris is talking about that little man in his head that was telling him to lock things up 

but he didn't

 

"This was something that was new, that we didn't understand in the way that we would have liked in the first few weeks and months, and ... the single thing that we didn't see at the beginning was the extent to which it was being transmitted asymptomatically from person to person," he told the BBC.
 

He and his Health Minister clearly didn’t, going around shaking hands and hugging everyone  

6 hours ago, Bkk Brian said:

There's only small handful of countries in the world that have handled the crisis well. The remainder all need to be open to criticism and a full review to avoid repeat mistakes which cost lives and the economy so disastrously.

 

Those that followed the advice of WHO in the early stages are suffering badly.

Another WHO blamer I see.

It is not for the WHO to govern how independent countries handle a pandemic; they can only issue warnings in the hope that countries then follow their guidance. In this instance the WHO Director-General issues a statemet that the outbreak constituted a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (it's highest warning) on the 30th January 2020. https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/27-04-2020-who-timeline---covid-19

It took Boris and his cronies a crucial 6 weeks to then start taking the crisis seriously having initially gone down the ill thought out 'herd immunity' approach and even downgrading the threat from level 4 back to 3. https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1932

This crucial time saw inactivity at an unprecidented scale (lack of PPE for frontline staff, care homes left to fend for themselves etc) and it's taken so long to get to the target testing numbers, it's all but useless.

There's a reason the UK has had so many infections and so many deaths and that reason starts and ends with Boris. 

 

 

8 hours ago, Rookiescot said:

It was always going to be handled poorly with someone like Johnson in charge.

Johnson really didn't have much choice but to acknowledge the screw ups.  Report after report highlighting how badly handled the response to the pandemic was.  Britain wasn't the only country to get it wrong but many lives were lost over the bungling and we ended up with a massive death toll.

 

There ain't no quick fix for this and with a weakened economy and Brexit on the horizon, it will inevitably get worse before it gets better.

What I cannot understand is why there is no outrage in England? Why are you not marching on Downing Street in anger at what he has done, and what he continues to do to you?

 

U.K. Coronavirus Map and Case Count

Edited July 25, 20205 yr by RuamRudy

7 minutes ago, RuamRudy said:

What I cannot understand is why there is no outrage in England? Why are you not marching on Downing Street in anger at what he has done, and what he continues to do to you?

 

U.K. Coronavirus Map and Case Count

I think the time for retribution will follow. Marching anywhere at this time will be seen as a bit of an own goal re COVID. 

As a previous poster said its unavoidable. The guns are already being loaded and there isn't a way out for how incompetent they have been. For once in his life he may actually have to tell the truth as I can’t see his medical advisors keeping quiet if he tries other wise. Not even sure Cummings will be able to worm his way out of this one. 

 

The anger re the amount of deaths in care homes and the reasons will not slowly be forgotten. 
 

The mask fiasco is another sham. People are still in disbelieve at the criteria of who/ where has/ has not got to wear. So many contradictions and far too late. 
 

 

This is a no win situation for all governments. Herd immunity, or lockdown and ruin their economies for generations ahead. In the UK we now understand that being run over by a bus is counted as a covid 19 death if the deceased had earlier been infected. As a result, those actually dying of corona are about half the 40k plus being generally quoted. A full audit is underway.

Just now, Thingamabob said:

This is a no win situation for all governments. Herd immunity, or lockdown and ruin their economies for generations ahead. In the UK we now understand that being run over by a bus is counted as a covid 19 death if the deceased had earlier been infected. As a result, those actually dying of corona are about half the 40k plus being generally quoted. A full audit is underway.

Herd immunity is very, very doubtful.

No, those deaths are not counted as covid-19 deaths.

11 minutes ago, Thingamabob said:

This is a no win situation for all governments. Herd immunity, or lockdown and ruin their economies for generations ahead. In the UK we now understand that being run over by a bus is counted as a covid 19 death if the deceased had earlier been infected. As a result, those actually dying of corona are about half the 40k plus being generally quoted. A full audit is underway.

Simply not true - excess deaths are a clear indicator of something anomalous.  

19 minutes ago, Kadilo said:

I think the time for retribution will follow. Marching anywhere at this time will be seen as a bit of an own goal re COVID. 

As a previous poster said its unavoidable. The guns are already being loaded and there isn't a way out for how incompetent they have been. For once in his life he may actually have to tell the truth as I can’t see his medical advisors keeping quiet if he tries other wise. Not even sure Cummings will be able to worm his way out of this one. 

 

The anger re the amount of deaths in care homes and the reasons will not slowly be forgotten. 
 

The mask fiasco is another sham. People are still in disbelieve at the criteria of who/ where has/ has not got to wear. So many contradictions and far too late. 
 

 

I guess I was being metaphorical - but there appears to be no outrage at all; just an acceptance that, in England, people are still continuing to die at alarming rates whereas the other parts of the UK have next to no deaths at all. 

56 minutes ago, RuamRudy said:

I guess I was being metaphorical - but there appears to be no outrage at all; just an acceptance that, in England, people are still continuing to die at alarming rates whereas the other parts of the UK have next to no deaths at all. 

I’m not sure there is an acceptance as such but definitely not the focus or publicity there was before. No daily update briefings, and the MSM seem to be switching their attentions away a little. 

The public seem to be oblivious to the number of deaths and just getting on with it so to speak. 

Edited July 25, 20205 yr by Kadilo

10 hours ago, Bkk Brian said:

There's only small handful of countries in the world that have handled the crisis well. The remainder all need to be open to criticism and a full review to avoid repeat mistakes which cost lives and the economy so disastrously.

 

Those that followed the advice of WHO in the early stages are suffering badly.

Actually thise countries that handled the epidemic well, such as Germany and SK, have followed the advices of WHO. You know, prepare in advance for possible outbreak, extensive early testing (protocol provided by WHO), tracing and isolating, etc...

2 hours ago, Thingamabob said:

This is a no win situation for all governments. Herd immunity, or lockdown and ruin their economies for generations ahead. In the UK we now understand that being run over by a bus is counted as a covid 19 death if the deceased had earlier been infected. As a result, those actually dying of corona are about half the 40k plus being generally quoted. A full audit is underway.

Absolute nonsense.

Apart from your very obvious conspiracy theory of anyone 'being run over by a bus is counted as a covid 19 death', how to handle this and similar pandemics have been in place for quite some time.

Taiwan (458 cases, 7 deaths) and South Korea (14,000 cases, 258 deaths), acted early and decisively, quickly putting in travel restrictions followed by screenings, identifying, tracing and strict quarantining. They never waited around for a non-existant herd immunity to emerge (that is only reasonably pluasible once a vacine has been found) and didn't ruin their economies as they didn't lock down.

The point though is all they did was follow well known and trusted doctrines/methodologies that had been put in place after the likes of SARS, H1N1, MERS and Ebola. Every other country also had the ability to mimic these methods but as in the case of the UK, they dithered in the crucial initial weeks and even now are not following guidance (why is it only been this week that the wearing of face masks has been made compulsory in shops for example).  

For a country that prides itself on it's esteemed scientific credtentials, the UK has done abysmally with C19 and the blame must lay with Boris and the Tories. Heads must roll!  

  

11 hours ago, stevenl said:

Yes, some handled well, some poorly. But there are degrees in that bad handling. USA and Brazil top the charts there, but also an island nation like UK is up there, with very late checks on passengers and other restrictions.

 

They were in a position to do relatively well, but made a mess of it. Countries with populists at the helm seem to have done a lot worse than more cohesive countries.

 

I think there is a strong connection between the late change in attitude and the populist governments.

UK, 45.677 with a population of 67,5 mln = 677 / mln

USA 147.650 casualties with a population of 331 mln = 446/mln

Brazil: 85.385 with a population of 212 mln = 402/mln ( probably many casualties not added up in this figure) 

Italy:  35.097  versus 60,3 mln: 582/mln

Spain: 28.432 versus 47,4 mln: 600/mln

France 30.192 versus 65,3: 462/mln

Germany: 9.201  versus 83,8: 119/mln

Japan: 994 versus 126,3: 78,7/mln

South Korea 298 versus 40,5 mln: 73,6/mln

Singapore: 27 versus 5,8 mln: 4,61/mln

Taiwan: 7 versus 23,6 mln: 2,97/mln

 

Boris is still far ahead of all others thanks to HIS ignorance of corina. 

I wish the British much luck with such leaders.

 

Edited July 25, 20205 yr by puipuitom

2 hours ago, RuamRudy said:

I guess I was being metaphorical - but there appears to be no outrage at all; just an acceptance that, in England, people are still continuing to die at alarming rates whereas the other parts of the UK have next to no deaths at all. 

Maybe because in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the area itsself gives already some social distancing ? Same Norway, Denmark and Finland . Sweden... pity...

Also the way youngsters behave during holidays, with some alcohol in, especially English, also an explanation 

Edited July 25, 20205 yr by puipuitom

4 minutes ago, puipuitom said:

Maybe because in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the area itsself gives already some social distancing ? Same Norway, Denmark and Finland . Sweden... pity...

Also the way youngsters behave during holidays, with some alcohol in, especially English, also an explanation 

My comment is less about the death rates themselves than about the refusal of the English to look just a few miles north or west and ask why the situations there are so very different. 

 

In the whole of July, the deaths in the UK from COVID are:

 

Scotland - 9

Wales - 38

N Ireland - 5

England - 1,772

 

What has happened that this doesn't even make headline news any longer? Why is nobody seemingly trying to work out why this should be the case?