I’ve been very impressed listening to the sweedish virus chap when he talks about their action and analysis.
Flip-flop Hancock does not inspire confidence.
Actually I don’t believe that the UK is specially bad. If you read EuroGA regularly (as I do, it being my job 
) you see some clear trends on our international forum
So whenever the UK screws something up, it gets hammered for it. Sure; a lot of our politicians do not inspire confidence, but few policitians anywhere inspire confidence, and that is just taking those countries which aren’t obviously totally corrupt and run by a mafia / gangsters / church / etc. We live in an age of bland politicians, and any public-facing govt job in these CV19 times is bound to be a poisoned chalice, ultimately terminating the political career of everybody involved. And they all know it. So the more clever politicians are keeping out of the studio lights, leaving “disposable” characters to face the media.
And the media, TV especially, behaves despicably. Many of the top personalities are absolute morons, incapable of asking a single intelligent question.
If you read the domestic media of other European countries you see the same dis-satisfaction with their leaders as you see in the UK. It just doesn’t get posted on a forum which is an English language one (it is that because English is the standard language of aviation).
I am increasingly convinced that nobody actually knows what they should be doing, and the whole world is doing various versions of reactive behaviour. Within the UK the four “countries” (what a joke) are each doing different reactions, tweaked to be slightly different so suggest that each one is driven by some superior science, but actually none of them have a bloody clue.
The scientists mostly don’t know how it spreads and even if they did they can’t do much to stop it, because people want to crowd into the nearest pub regardless of risk, and if you close the pubs 10pm they just move to each others’ houses and carry on.
It increasingly looks like the spread of this virus is driven by a collection of factors, of which many are unknown, and there is a mysterious “immunity factor” emerging which is clearly there but equally clearly is not conventional herd immunity via antibodies.
Research is hard to do because the stuff is obviously incredibly infectious. One guy can pop down to some, ahem, “close-up partying” on Mykonos and when he comes back he can without even trying infect a 3 digit number of others, of whom a number will die.
So each country can claim some superior strategy, but it is mostly luck. And 3 months later another country will be claiming another superior strategy
The dissatisfaction with governments is rampant everywhere, not only in the UK. I would not be surprised, if Corona actually manages to fell quite a lot of them in the near future, now that the measures need to be re-increased to prevent the 2nd wave outbreak, which in many countries is in full swing. Numbers in France, Spain and elsewhere are simply out of control and already exponential again, but yet again, countries shy away from protecting their citizens out of economic fears. Clearly, money counts more than lifes yet again.
Voices are starting to appear which are asking for Nurnberg style tribunals to deal with those who hampered border closures and lockdown measures in March and allowed this virus to spread the way it did. They knew in January that this was afoot, but most of them reacted like the Americans and tried to calm themselves down and did nothing. The consequence is a world wide economic and health disaster of proportions last experienced over 100 years ago.
The more and more reports appear, how certain people have acted in the face of this pandemic I agree that these people need to be held responsible for their failure to do their job. It is not that pandemic plans were not available, but they were thrown out of the window the moment they should have been implemented. No, Trump was not the only one to do hat, in fact he was the only one who closed the borders early, but even that was too late. He, as well as other leaders knew as early as January (WEF) what would happen. They did not react appropriately and must be made to pay the price for that.
Governments must learn the price for failing their population the way they did. It must never happen again.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Voices are starting to appear which are asking for Nurnberg style tribunals to deal with those who hampered border closures and lockdown measures in March and allowed this virus to spread the way it did.
Personally I feel that would be too extreme in all but the worst cases of incompetence or self-interest (favouritism towards industries in which you have a financial interest, for example). Early on there was a lot of uncertainty – much of which remains. People who are in the position of making impossible choices need to be able to do so without risking criminalisation. In five years we will have a much better idea as to what we should have done.
Personally I feel that would be too extreme in all but the worst cases of incompetence or self-interest
@kwlf I happen to know some people who have access to all the pandemic plans for their country ( I will not say which one, but it doesn´t matter as they are all more or less the same). All of them made the same sobering experience in February and March.
First of all, the first indicators appeared well before it got on the radar of the population. No “world leader” can claim he did not know.
When those in charge of pandemic plans opened their drawers and took out their well prepared plans, they got the same answer all over from he politicians they had to present them to:“WE CAN´T DO THAT!!!!!” after all, there will be re-elections and this is gonna piss off the electorate. Or, it will kill the shareholder value of their secret stash of riches. And so on.
Then they discovered, that the compulsory storage of masks and hygienic materials had been fleeced for years, money and materials stolen or out of stinginess not ordered, so e.g. there were no masks around for the population. So they lied, masks don´t help.
Plus there were some experts who took the things also way too lightly. Information has leaked that our Mr Corona himself was one who gave very bad advice to his superiors. Same thing everywhere.
So no, it was not only Trump who tried to downplay the whole thing, it was everywhere. The result is a world wide pandemic, which has up to now cost close to a million lifes and destroyed countless others. I want them tried for it. all of them. Even if Pierrepoint is no longer available to do the justice later.
Peter wrote:
I am increasingly convinced that nobody actually knows what they should be doing, and the whole world is doing various versions of reactive behaviour. Within the UK the four “countries” (what a joke) are each doing different reactions, tweaked to be slightly different so suggest that each one is driven by some superior science, but actually none of them have a bloody clue.
Every day in Scotland our FM comes on giving us the latest stats. 4 in hospital, 118 new cases, 1 dead. Flanked by the science expert, the National Clinical Director for Scotland, a dentist, (yes a failed doctor), running the show. He has become the Pantomime Dame, appearing on comedy radio shows, telling golf club humour very unfunny jokes. My wife and I sit looking at each other and wondering where this dystopian farce will take us.
Good friend called me yesterday, lives in Madrid and flies for a European loco. 10 hours a month. All terms and conditions slashed.They pay him for the 10 hours. He can no longer afford the house, the car, and is looking for a second job in a very barran Spanish landscape. I think he called me just to talk…….
Just wait until the pension property liquidity pots dry up, if I am to believe a financial services friend, that is not far off. Yes @ mooney someone really does have to pay for all of this.
The problem in the UK “north” where the stuff is taking off is that too many people are completely stupid.
Unfortunately there really are people who believe this virus was manufactured by Bill Gates, etc. I even know someone university educated (and I don’t mean in recent years!) who has fully bought into this unbelievable crap. It’s hard to get one’s head around this but I guess a lot of people have such a total disconnect from the physical world that – and especially with a lack of education – they can easily believe it.
In the end social media runs the lives of so many and is capable of being utterly destructive to any attempts to address the issue.
Peter wrote:
In the end social media runs the lives of so many and is capable of being utterly destructive to any attempts to address the issue.
Well the issue appears to be completely stupid politicians, lead by a completely stupid MSM, supported by a completely stupid social media driven population, following weird science.. Just what could go wrong?
Here is an Old Man in a Chair. A discussion topic only 
https://brandnewtube.com/watch/everything-that-has-happened-was-meant-to-happen_YzirTosrfBeJD65.html
Politicians can’t stop the population getting their news feed from social media. It’s out of their hands – in any free country.
It is probably a simple psychological thing, which leads people to throw away science in favour of half baked theories and social media.
What is needed to kill this virus epidemic out once and for good is very uncomfortable and has, now that it has gone its way, gone beyond the capabilities of society. People are therefore desparate for someone to tell them it’s all bollox and they should go on with their lifes. So they will until they get sick themselfs.
Looking at accounts from earlier pandemics such as the Russian Flu (which actually was a corona virus) and the Spanish Flu, the same mechanisms are seen again. Nothing has changed, only that the means of every nincompoop who should be sitting quietly hiding his own stupidity to publish worldwide via Social Media has amplified the effect of distrust and outright anger. I would not be surprised, if in the end social media may start civil unrest or even civil war amongst people.
Many folks do expose themselfs in ways it is hard to stomach and I think in a lot of ways the Covid debate has educated many of us about what people they were actually dealing with… it was horriffic to see for me how people I used to like and trust have turned out to have very little regard for their fellow mankind. I am sure that the circle of real friends we have will change massively as a result. Mine has and it has become a lot smaller.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Looking at accounts from earlier pandemics such as the Russian Flu (which actually was a corona virus) and the Spanish Flu, the same mechanisms are seen again. Nothing has changed, only that the means of every nincompoop who should be sitting quietly hiding his own stupidity to publish worldwide via Social Media has amplified the effect of distrust and outright anger. I would not be surprised, if in the end social media may start civil unrest or even civil war amongst people.
You have written many posts on this theme and you seem very certain of yourself. I’m not so certain in my beliefs of what should be done at this point or how urgent it is.
We’ll see in a year’s time or so who is right
