Covid: UK start to pandemic worst public health failure ever, MPs say

With you too Lucca on the mask wearing issue, no brainer

“Why are the words 'corporate manslaughter' not yet a major part of the public debate on Covid?”

When all this started I was due to fly to visit my dad. He told me not to come, he said it will all lockdown soon, the governments here and there are going to realise their mistake.

He was right. He had seen this coming before they did because he was listening to the sources they weren't.

They made a huge mistake and it cost lives. They locked down too late.

They didn't listen to the warnings. They didn't have anything in place to prepare for a pandemic that history taught us would happen so much more easily than in the past in such a mobile world.

They didn't listen when they were told that allowing covid too much of a strong standing in the community would allow for more dangerous variants.

They didn't do enough to stop new variants coming in to the country or even just the spread between communities.

Now they have thrown children and schools under a bus because they are relying on herd immunity for young people.

No planning, no foresight, no empathy and no following their own rules.

Criticise government decisions.....hope other countries will do the same.

I am only interested in the UK. Other countries did not delay lockdowns and border control. It is just as well the UK government did not delay the vaccine rollout as well. So praise for that.
However, the decision to leave it up to the individual in parts of the UK re Hands, Face, Space worries me. My granddaughter’s school is on the brink of going back to blended learning.

“Dead people don’t benefit from a vaccine roll out”

TwoWolves

I haven't read the whole report, just what's been reported on the report, but I haven't seen one mention of facemasks. They didn't even warrant a mention - just points to the fact that they were never of any use.

From the report:

The UK, along with many other countries in Europe and North America made a serious early error in adopting this fatalistic approach and not considering a more emphatic and rigorous approach to stopping the spread of the virus as adopted by many East and South East Asian countries.

Masks are a key feature of Asian country's response to any infectious disease outbreak.

Just saying...

Ah but do we blame the government for not questioning the initial scientific reports on lockdown which were wrong or do we blame the scientists? Maybe we blame both. What saved them and us was the vaccine production and roll out.

We locked everything down at the football club a week before the FA ordered us to on advice they received from DSMS. Dh stopped travelling to London 2 weeks before. Too many cavalier attitudes in Govt.

If anybody is interested in reading the original summary by the cross-party Health and Social Care, and
Science and Technology Committees (rather than the versions appearing in the media), it's here:

publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmsctech/92/9204.htm

The full 147 page report is here:

committees.parliament.uk/publications/7496/documents/78687/default/

I was teaching an adult Ed class at the time and I opted to stop a week (actually maybe 2) before lockdown on advice from a friend in Italy. Very glad I did. My students were nearly all elderly and they agreed with me.

25Avalon

Ah but do we blame the government for not questioning the initial scientific reports on lockdown which were wrong or do we blame the scientists? Maybe we blame both. What saved them and us was the vaccine production and roll out.

We locked everything down at the football club a week before the FA ordered us to on advice they received from DSMS. Dh stopped travelling to London 2 weeks before. Too many cavalier attitudes in Govt.

The introduction to the report specifically mentions "blame":

"Its purpose is not to point fingers of blame but
ensure an accurate understanding of both successes and failures to date so that crucial lessons can be learned for the future."

Blame isn't helpful because people start covering their backs and the truth remains hidden.

Politicians need to accept what happened and the part they played in it and stop making excuses.

Lucca

I was teaching an adult Ed class at the time and I opted to stop a week (actually maybe 2) before lockdown on advice from a friend in Italy. Very glad I did. My students were nearly all elderly and they agreed with me.

My local secondary school was almost closed a week or so before lockdown started. Many parents decided to keep their children at home.

I clearly remember many people at the time voicing the same concerns that have now been written off as hindsight.

My daughter set up a covid support group so that people could stay in their homes ages before the government did anything to help. The first lockdown was announced in such a way that people then partied for-the whole weekend. It was Whitty, I believe, that decided not to test people because the virus was already out of control. Even JVT at one point advised against wearing masks saying they didn’t work. Johnson didn’t bother to go to several COBRA meeting: too busy with other things including things in his personal life. At every stage DH would say to each other, they’re being reactive not proactive yet again. Even eat out to help out resulted in an increase in infections. And even now we have the highest infection rate in Western Europe because lessons are never learned. And yet still people defend the government.

Just on a point of accuracy, it wasn’t possible to test people in the early days because there weren’t tests available, and when they were, in very small numbers, they were used to try to reduce the spread of infection in hospitals which was by that time a major problem, so that wasn’t down to any recommendation made by Chris Whitty, or the government. They got many things wrong, but they can’t be blamed for the very early test failure issues.

MaizieD Not quite true about Exercise Alice only just coming to public notice. Shortly after the pandemic started, back in 2020, I saw an interview with a scientist who had been involved in that exercise explaining that the government had been warned in 2016 about possible pandemics and that they had chosen to ignore the warnings.

I am hoping that mask wearing will continue in future by anyone who has a cold. A few years ago n a flight back to France I sat with an empty seat between us next to a woman who was coughing and sneezing without using a handkerchief. The next day I went down with a virus which lead to bronchitis which resulted in me being bed ridden for two weeks.

Dinahmo

MaizieD Not quite true about Exercise Alice only just coming to public notice. Shortly after the pandemic started, back in 2020, I saw an interview with a scientist who had been involved in that exercise explaining that the government had been warned in 2016 about possible pandemics and that they had chosen to ignore the warnings.

There have, apparently, been several pandemic exercises. The scientist was most likely talking about Cygnus, that one was 2016. The former CMO, Professor Dame Sally Davies, gave evidence about an earlier exercise (2007) Winter Willow, which also seems to have been disregarded.

The report says

Despite carrying out simulation exercises, we heard that the UK did not adequately learn the lessons of previous pandemics

Exercise Alice

Exercise Alice was a British Middle East respiratory syndrome ( MERS-CoV) pandemic modelling exercise from 2016 involving officials from Public Health England and the Department of Health and Social Care and led by the Chief Medical Officer. The details of the exercise was kept secret on grounds of national security until October 2021.

(This is not from the report)

Prof. Davies was CMO in 2016. Strange that she didn't mention it in her evidence, given that it was dealing with diseases similar to covid. Clearly still a state secret?

A public enquiry is needed NOW

Well, young people were quite happy to wear masks and it was beginning to become an accepted part of our culture. And quite rightly so. Why should people with colds and coughs and sneezes spread their germs. We still don’t know (and never will) if it was the boy that coughed into my grandsons face and said ‘you’ve got it now’ that was the one that gave him covid. Perhaps a mask wearing policy at the school would have prevented that . And, given that so many people hark on about covid just being like the flu but nobody bothers about people dying of that, might consider wearing masks in the future to prevent future flu epidemics. Just think how much that would help our beleaguered NHS. If the pandemic should have taught us one thing it’s that we all need to protect others as well as ourselves.

Did they really need a committee to come to that conclusion?
Everybody I know as always been well aware of how Boris’s delays in shutting down the country gave us the worst casualty rate in Europe.

But there seems to be a mass amnesia when it comes to the governments failings throughout the pandemic. And I keep going back to my Stockholm Syndrome theory.

I only heard a bit of it as I came into the bedroom this morning, but Steve Barclay was inferring that Starmer was to blame for some of it.......next it will be the EU, specifically France as they seem to be the enemy de nos jours at the moment.

Esspee

Did they really need a committee to come to that conclusion?
Everybody I know as always been well aware of how Boris’s delays in shutting down the country gave us the worst casualty rate in Europe.

Once again:

There is a world of difference between concerned citizens discussing the management of the pandemic and a report of a Parliamentary Select Committee (in this case, two of them). One of the purposes of a Select committee is to examine government action and to hold it to account. This isn't just some grumbling citizens, it's part of the democratic 'machine'. Government are supposed to take this report seriously even if they're not bothered about what we say about them.

GillT57

I only heard a bit of it as I came into the bedroom this morning, but Steve Barclay was inferring that Starmer was to blame for some of it.......next it will be the EU, specifically France as they seem to be the enemy de nos jours at the moment.

Starmer wasn't even leader of the Labour Party when it all broke!

This guy was, though:

twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1239257257466122247

I’m not denying that mistakes were made, I’m also happy that there were successes. An inquiry is to show where we can prevent mistakes happening in future.
I am interested in the statements made by senior Labour Party members today that the Government didn’t challenge the experts in the beginning and yet during the Brexit campaign when leavers challenged the experts those same people said they were wrong to do so.
Just saying

Which experts do you mean PollyTickle? My recollection is that "experts" were ridiculed.