y2johnny wrote:I don't have a selective memory, thanks for being so aggressive in your response though.....typical.Sluffy wrote:
New Zealand is basically the back of beyond in global travel terms, so easy to keep isolated and is effectively Covid proof simply because of its position on the globe.
Australia had a mare, they got it completely wrong with the Ruby Princess and effectively helped spread coronavirus worldwide ffs!
After getting it under control they basically scored a second own goal with lax control and supervision of isolation of visitors to Australia in Melbourne and basically had to isolate the city for a couple of months because of it, so no, they certainly were not textbook examples of normal country's getting it right!
Probably Germany is perhaps the best example I can think of and they had the massive advantage of not only having perhaps the worlds best pharmaceutical infrastructure but also a regimented and diligent population seemingly more disciplined in following basic instructions on social distancing, etc - and even they are in lockdown right now, similar to ours!
We of course had a full lockdown at the beginning of the year which people basically got bored with, did there own thing and haven't given a fuck about anybody else ever since.
It's people who spread Covid not governments!
We've had excuse under the Sun why selfish twat's do whatever they want to do including driving to Barnard Castle to check their eye-sight ffs!
It doesn't matter if the government is good, bad or indifferent as long as people don't give a toss, the virus will still be spread and the hospitals will fill up with cases.
It really is as simple as that.
Bolton/Greater Manchester has been in lockdown for what, about two months now and the new cases are higher now then when they went into lockdown - how can you blame the government for that, because if everyone isolated for just two weeks the virus would simply have died out there.
It's people breaking lock down that is the problem and not sticking to the simple few rules to stop all of this happening!!!
But blame the government - anybody but themselves of course.
And as for late lockdowns - don't make me laugh - it's all the government's (Tory) fault for doing it too late in March but not a dickie bird is said for Manchester's delay into going into tier 3 for well over a week with Burnham's (Labour) political point scoring stance some weeks back!?
Selective memory or what?
Also I do agree with a lot of what you say. There are a huge amount of selfish conspiracy theorists who are dragging this on a lot longer than what is needed.
The UK is a small island, we could of quite easily done similar. We did lockdown too late. That is a fact.
Again, with the Andy Burnham thing, I agree. But both parties was to blame, funny when London are dragged into the lockdown the furlough scheme goes back up to 80%.
Australia is already doing a lot better than the UK, and even have people back at sporting events, time will tell if it is too soon but still doing better than we are.
And the "blame the government, anybody but themselves" comment, well doing what I do you don't need to tell me that. I've seen the absolute worst of everything unfortunately. From people profiteering on vital ppe, inadequate ppe being supplied to the NHS, misinformation, conspiracies, selfishness....the list is endless.
I don't know whether a different party in the UK would do a better job, I never claimed they could. All I do know is this government has ignored scientists calls from day one until it is too late.
As you seem to be agreeing mostly with me I'll only highlight two points to reply to - The UK is an island true but it is also one of the worlds great travel hubs and the biggest in Europe. In short the world comes to us and we go to the world. We may be little but in world travel terms we are superbly well connected and not parked out of the way in some southern corner of the world like Australia and New Zealand are.
The virus was almost definitely in this country even before most of us had ever heard of coronavirus and even if we had lockdown a a couple of weeks before we did the self entitled knobs would only have stuck it for a few weeks before fucking it off probably meaning that the second wave would have simply reached us a couple of weeks earlier than what it actually has!
As for the second point if the only priority was health the government, any government, would be taking the experts advice but it is not, the economy is a critical factor to keep alive too and as many sage members have already said, their job is to give informed health advice to the government for them to decide how to achieve a working balance between keeping people safe and keep jobs going at the same time.
Both are critical and you simply can't choose one over the other, you have to somehow manage both at the same time.
Fwiw I've never said the government was doing a good job or a bad one just that they were doing what any government would do more or less with the resources and knowledge they had at the time and the unknown hurdles and mountains they would have to climb as the tsunami swept over them.
I'm certainly not a fan of this government but it's hardly their fault if people deliberately refuse to follow a few simple rules to stop this thing from spreading in its tracks.
Sure they've made mistakes, not got the messages out clearly, made plenty bad decisions - any government would get things wrong in the circumstances but the big problem - and the thing that is keeping the whole thing going - is irresponsible and selfish behaviour from absolutely loads of people and that unfortunately is the world we now live in.
It really isn't hard to social distance, wear a mask indoors in public or work places, stay within your bubble and wash your hands and I simply can't see why the government is being blamed because so many selfish and uncaring people can't be arsed to be bothered about it.
It simply isn't the government that is causing the problem it's the many who simply still can't give a fuck about anyone but themselves and clearly never will.