I’m delighted Boris is back!

Chris Whitty.

Trisher, it's a man---Sir Liam Donaldson.( England )

EllanVannin the number of flu deaths in the very worst year is approximately half of the number of covid deaths expected.
Flu deaths
2014/15
28,330 (27,462 to 29,208)

2015/16
11,875 (11,237 to 12,524)

2016/17
18,009 (17,260 to 18,768)

2017/18
26,408 (17,260 to 18,768)

2018/19*
1,692 (1,352 to 2,056)

Oh, and pulling together as a nation won’t help to overcome this - the collective expertise of the scientific community to produce vaccines and drugs will. We can certainly continue with social distancing measures and appropriate hygiene but more than that is down to Govt.

I disagree.

We have the fifth highest death rate in the world - the fifth. No Govt will get it right 100% of the time but many Govts got it a lot better than this one. Not just marginally better - many thousands of saved lives better.

I dont know what pull together means though? Does it mean backing government plans, does it mean looking at the success in countries such as NZ, Greece, Germany, and following what they have done. Pull together means completely different things to different people.

Grandad1943

One of the best posts I've read on here

granddad43. I agree 100%

No Chestnet - we’re not discussing where it originated because we already know that and none of us can change that in the UK. What we’re discussing is what the UK Govt did and didn’t do - and it didn’t do enough.

I really fail to see why the Chief medical officer for Scotland (who had to resign for twice breeching lockdown) was consulted about a race meeting in Gloucestershire. She really didn't have much judgement about this virus at all did she?

This is an unprecedented crisis such as not been witnessed in recent history. Mistakes have been made and would have been made whatever political party was in government, such has been the speed and complexity of the onset of the Pandemic.

However, I along with many others applaud the pace at which this government have provided assistance to both employees and businesses who have lost all income due to the lockdown.

Of course, that assistance provision will not be perfect in its requirement, and some persons and businesses will "fall through the net" of help. However, speaking as someone who has been a very strong lifelong Labour Party/movement supporter I have no doubt that no political party in government at this time would have got everything perfectly correct.

There will be without doubt, I believe, further mistakes made in fighting this virus, and in the severe economic battle that will follow the health crisis. That will be in itself a very long road to travel with much hardship and sorrow along the way. However, if the nation continues to "pull together" in the way that it has, all will be eventually overcome.

Why is this virus any different to the count of deaths during a cold winter and a flu virus ?
Why weren't there daily headlines at the amount of people dying on a daily basis.? As does happen every winter.

Glorybee, when the " beast from the East " struck, there were 153,717 deaths recorded between January and March.143,000 had been expected.

SirChenjin It originated in China, but that’s not the issue
The cause of everything that's happened is exactly the issue.

Actually, the death rates (which is how these things are measured) are lower in America. We have the fifth highest death rate per million in the world www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?utm_campaign=homeAdUOA?Si

What strategies are those Luckygirl ? Taking into consideration the differences in numbers re. population ?

Not everyone's obeying the rules here as it is. Underground has still been packed to the gunnels----why ??

It sounds awful to say it but we don’t yet have as many deaths as Italy, Spain, France and of course the USA, not that it is a morbid kind of competition, but they are what I would consider comparable countries.

The fan club is certainly out in force. For once he gave a coherent speech with no Latin tags or references to the ancient Greeks. But, he was only confirming what the majority thought - that it is too early to relax the lockdown. Too early except for the extreme right.Some of whom - Toby Young, Katie Hopkins and James Delingpole - apparently think that we are all wimps and that there was no need for a lockdown.

Precisely Glory and look at the differences between the death rates across the world. The Tories botched it.

I am not talking about the size of NZ (I do grasp the population differences etc.) but the strategies they employed - all of which could have been done here but weren't.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man - which man is this - Johnson or Cummings?

My point is that Germany did what they decided what was best for them, as did those other developed nations, Spain, Italy France etc etc. We also did what we thought best, why should the UK be expected to get it so right, above every other country?

Ellan - Ultimately the government have to take responsibility for its decision making. There's never a consensus among the scientific community. Equally it looks like there was input from senior government advisers who sat on SAGE so impartiality must be questioned.

Yes I saw that - as you say, a very interesting article. He also casts doubt on the theory it cane from the Wuhan market “is more likely to have started where the animal – the intermediate host – was bred” or that it passed through pangolins on its way to humans.

40,000 deaths not a success
He was told November about getting prepared for the pandemic spreading from China.

Delayed Order PPE Equipment
Test and trace
Lockdown

JAPAN population 120 million (383 deaths)
South Korea population 52 million (243 deaths)
New Zealand population 5 million (18 deaths)
#BORISISBACK and called it a success!

And he’s cautious about saying they are out of the woods -

The federal plan is to lift lockdown slightly, but because the German states, or Länder, set their own rules, I fear we’re going to see a lot of creativity in the interpretation of that plan. I worry that the reproduction number will start to climb again, and we will have a second wave.