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

Steve Barclay on Question Time on 20 March 2020:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL6qD4dSLWQ

It's frightening how right Prof John Ashton was.

I remember early in March, 2 weeks before first lockdown, I was at my daughter’s house with the gc waiting for her to arrive home from work as an Nhs nurse. She was completely drained when she arrived home. She explained how serious the situation was in hospitals and couldn’t understand why the government hadn’t locked down the country as it was plain to see what was hurtling down the tracks. When I left their house that evening she advised me to go home and stay out of circulation and not to visit them.

I have a loved one in a nursing home and the management there were also concerned by the lack of action by the government and decided to lock down 2 weeks earlier. Tragically, despite their best efforts to keep everyone safe, they lost 11 much loved residents to covid in those early weeks. They were sent an untested patient from hospital who had covid. They were sitting ducks.

I am in no way defending the government but I don't think people would have listened and stayed in anyway. All of you on here are mature and have most probably seen what life can throw at people in the way of illness or trauma, women of the world. I don't think everyone is like that. You only had to look at the scenes outside tesco in the weeks leading up to lockdown!

PollyTickle

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

It was Gove who said ‘the country have had enough of experts’.

The two biggest failures were: failing to lockdown at the start (mainly because they were not taking it seriously enough I think) and shipping covid positive patients back to care homes (total insanity).

The positive is clearly the development of the vaccine.

In between were more failures, notably track and trace (a joke, quite frankly) and the wonderful idea of sending school children back after the holiday for ONE DAY to spread the bug around and then closing them - absolutely no excuse for this - pure incompetence.

When the news of the bug in China came on the TV I clearly remember thinking "Thank goodness we are an island." Hmmmm ....I then watched the total absence of any attempt to close our borders till 1000s had died.

We know mistakes were made so is a public enquiry going to tell us anything we don't know already?

What do people who lost loved ones because of Covid mean when they say they want justice?

Smileless2012

We know mistakes were made so is a public enquiry going to tell us anything we don't know already?

What do people who lost loved ones because of Covid mean when they say they want justice?

Good question, Smileless2012

My brother in law contracted Covid when in hospital for a knee replacement. This was early April. last year. 58 with a young family.

However our family, whilst being incredibly sad by his loss are not demanding inquiries or expecting justice. What justice would this be? Money? How will that help? Grovelling apologies? What for? Nothing will help.

Not all bereaved families act the same

I saw a bit about this on the news this morning before I went out. I think we locked down a bit too late, especially the first lockdown. It may only have been a week or two, but it might have saved lives to lockdown a bit earlier. I also think that during the first lockdown we should have locked down air travel, and like in later lockdowns, made holidays, at home or abroad, illegal. I think that might have helped.

I would have thought that it went without saying that a public enquiry is about identifying shortcomings and failures with a view to doing better in the future.

Mistakes were certainly made, as they were in every country I’m sure, but I can clearly remember reading about the thinking behind the timing of the first lockdown.

The government was convinced that timing was crucial to ensure that everyone was at home to coincide with the peak of the pandemic which was estimated to be a few weeks off.

It was thought that if the lockdown occurred too soon, people would soon get fed up and inpatient and start socialising just as the pandemic reached its peak.

The government and scientists later said that they were staggered at the level of compliance of the public.

Mamie

I would have thought that it went without saying that a public enquiry is about identifying shortcomings and failures with a view to doing better in the future.

Oh I do agree that there should be a public inquiry. There will be one.

I am just not hankering for one.

Not sure it will be hugely helpful. Lessons learned, better whatever. Just words.

I agree that we went into lockdown a week too late. There was so much on the news. An Italian doctor was filmed telling the UK that the horrific scenes there were going to hit our shores.

Absurd to allow that football match to take place. Cheltenham shouldn't have gone ahead.

Mistakes were made. Massive mistakes with a devastating outcome. Mistakes happened all over the world.

But I just can't start laying blame. No country, no government wanted this to happen.

Showing my ignorance here but what other public health failures have there been? Always assuming we aren't blaming government for smoking/drinking/over-eating health issues.

It isn't just about what decisions were made and when, it is about how they were made. Could communications have been improved, were the right people consulted, were the criteria for making decisions clear, were decisions implemented and results evaluated? How effective was the Downing Street machine, how effective was Cobra? Were Civil Servants properly consulted and instructed, what were the Spads doing? Were decisions about procurement managed correctly? (?)
It isn't just about whether lockdown should have been a week earlier.

HIV is probably the most recent Baggs.

Casdon

HIV is probably the most recent Baggs.

Ah... I hadn't thought of that as a public health failure. I'm still not sure how its handling could be blamed on government, which I'm presuming is the tone of the thread heading.

Actually, given how devastating HIV has been and how little was known about how to deal with it, I'm not sure it can be counted as a failure but I'd better go in search of some info.....

I find myself in the unusual situation of not blaming the government for this. None of us had seen anything like this pandemic before and its easy to look back and say they should have done this or that. Of course they should, but nobody had any idea what was waiting for us.

Info found as ourworldindtaa.org:
Summary

-Almost one million die from HIV/AIDS each year – in some countries it’s the leading cause of death.
-In some countries, HIV/AIDS is the cause of more than one-quarter of deaths.
-Death rates are highest across Sub-Saharan Africa.
-Death rates are highest for younger adults, and for children (when HIV is transmitted from a mother).
-The world is making progress: over the past decade the number of global deaths has halved.
-The HIV epidemic had a major impact on life expectancy across Sub-Saharan Africa, and life expectancy is only now back to pre-epidemic levels.
-Antiretroviral treatment (ART) has been key to preventing deaths from AIDS. It is estimated that it now averts 1.2 million deaths per year – without it, global deaths would be more than twice as high.
-Funding for HIV treatment and prevention needs to increase if the world is to meet its 2030 targets.

Over forty years of its being epidemic (it was known about before), that doesn't look too bad to me.

It isn't just about whether lockdown should have been a week earlier.

Agreed. And Boris shouldn't have been telling everyone how he was shaking hands with Covid patients.

Track and trace? Disaster.

Eat Out to Help Out? Unwise.

Infected residents of care homes being sent out of hospital. Massive problem here. I know many people who work in hospitals and there was no easy answer. Where were these people to go? They were filling ump with seriously ill patients. I just don't know what we should have done. Hancock with his ring of steel? Utterly ridiculous and blatantly untrue. But this was a problem throughout Europe and USA.

www.voanews.com/a/covid-19-pandemic_who-europe-half-deaths-care-homes/6188052.html

So we made a catalogue of blunders but so did many other countries. Not necessarily blunders, we were just ignorant. Nobody knew what to do.

Black Swan Event

The issue with the Covid mismanagement is that the infection was wafting over from abroad, we could see it coming. I was posting on here trying to flag it up as an issue. for weeks. For 2 weeks at least expecting a lockdown to be announced when all that was happening was the virus becoming embedded in the community. When lockdown happened the nation tried its best to comply, generally speaking. People could see what was happening in Italy, you didn't have to be a public health expert and yet those who had responsibility seemed to think that it would not apply to us, the report cites 'Groupthink and evidence of British exceptionalism'. Trying to pretend that the decision makers have been redeemed by the success of the vaccine rollout can't be much comfort to those who have lost loved one or suffering for long Covid.

They were filling ump with seriously ill patients.

Up. I really should read and check before posting

No government is to blame for Covid and no government got everything right. But a government that cannot learn from its mistakes in order to do better in the next crisis has no right to remain in office.

Alegrias1

I find myself in the unusual situation of not blaming the government for this. None of us had seen anything like this pandemic before and its easy to look back and say they should have done this or that. Of course they should, but nobody had any idea what was waiting for us.

Are you feeling alright, Alegrias?

Nobody had any idea what was waiting for us?

Didn't you see all the news reports from China?
And then from Italy?

The ones that had us 'ordinary' folks asking why we weren't locking down, or implementing our own unilateral lockdowns?

I think it's right to say that the implications probably hadn't quite sunk in*, but we were social distancing and bumping elbows and instructed to cough and sneeze into our elbows from early March.

(*The weekend prior to the lockdown weekend we travelled south to a competition with our DD, stayed in a B&B where the owner had just come back from the Cheltenham races and had a meal in a local pub that was jam packed solid... the message hadn't quite sunk in... makes my blood run cold to think of it now..)

We went on holiday to Norfolk that early March, and we were very aware of the issue. We avoided things like NT property, crowded spaces and restaurants. We spent the time outdoors walking and went back to our cottage on our own.

So we were very very aware of the risk.

I don’t want to sidetrack the discussion Baggs, but Public Health in the UK made a large number of errors in managing HIV here. Here’s one example, but there are lots of other issues too.
www.aidsmap.com/news/may-2009/uks-failure-tackle-undiagnosed-hiv-infections-appalling-says-lancet

Paul Mainwood on Twitter is interesting on the use of data in the early stages of the pandemic.