[theo_luddite]

Damn lies and statistics - just count the dead bodies. It isn't hard. 100,000 dead is 100,000 dead. It doesn't matter how many dead per million or per 100,000. It's 100,000 dead - that were still alive this time last year and had every reasonable chance of still being alive today had Bodgit moved his fat arse into gear based on what news was coming out of China, Italy and to some extent, Spain 12 months ago.

Are you alive? Prod. Wait for a sign of life.

That'll be a no then. Bag 'em up Jim, one more for the morgue, one less for the jabs.

Next?

[hibeejim21]

Exactly Theo.

I happen to think Governments should be judged by their ability to minimise transmission and deaths, not by the effect of an arbitrary population size.

[St Charles Owl]

Exactly Theo.

I happen to think Governments should be judged by their ability to minimise transmission and deaths, not by the effect of an arbitrary population size.

Sorry Jim, cannot agree with that. Population and population density are completely intertwined with any governments ability to minimise transmission and deaths during a pandemic!! A statement that the population doesn't matter makes you sound like the Trumpsters over here!! California has the highest numbers in the US in terms of cases and deaths, not because they have done it all wrong but because they have far more people than any other state, yet they get hammered by the right because of their totals when in reality a far smaller percentage of the population have had it or died from it in CA than most other states. California has enforced more restrictions and stay at home orders than most other states and it has worked to keep the hospitals functioning and reduced the number of people who could have suffered from it, like the UK it is having another spike at the moment and again restrictions have been tightened in response to that. Other right wing states that have much lower populations have much higher death rates and still don't have mandatory mask rules in place, but get a pass from the right because their overall numbers are not as high as New York's or California's.

My point wasn't to judge the Tories by their efforts or by the obvious mistakes they have made, you live there and see it, I don't, but the numbers have to be presented in a manner that takes into account the population or else what are you comparing it to? Some countries have done much better during this pandemic, we need to learn from that for starters but so many countries have struggled with this through the mistakes made by the Government. The Tories/UK are not alone in deserving criticism for the way they have handled this nor is California above criticism even though they are one of the better ones out of a bad bunch of states.

[ritchiebaby]

I must admit to be leaning towards theo and co's interpretation on this, but despite my regular criticism of the current Government's weak attempts to mitigate the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the transmission is not their fault.

It doesn't matter if you give everyone £10,000 to encourage self-isolation or increase the amount of restrictions Governments put in place, the end result is the same, unless the general population obey the rules. Governments, supermarkets, bars, schools, etc don't spread the virus - individual members of the public do, and as long as a sizeable minority ignore the rules, the pandemic will only get worse.

Individual responsibility rules and too many people don't believe in that concept. It's always somebody else's fault.

[0762]

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavir...d=msedgdhp

Add this latest significant travel ban to this debate eh! The UK variant looks like it crossed the Atlantic and now we have this Brazil variant looking like it can retrospectively cross back "across the pond". This one looks like it can potentially ignore any immunity or antibody protection of an individual. No doubt more virology research to follow on this but it is definitely concerning particularly during these challenging times.

[hibeejim21]

Population density does not capture the finer points of how people gather together though. Take Hong Kong,Seoul or Taipei which are all high pop density areas but they have all limited covid 19 cases because their governments have successfully protected people.... but also because they take into consideration the connections between communities, healthcare access etc etc. Rather than just looking at crowding. Nor has density particularly predicted the diseases course in the US.

Of course population matters to a degree but not when you are using it to lump together nations in the manner that you have there. I'd look more at the effects on mortality during the pandemic and it shows you Britain and Spain have suffered the most, but drill down and Spain has a significantly older population and a culture of generations sharing accommodation (like Italy in that respect) . So adjusting for age structure is important too.

When you remove the nations we shouldn't be getting compared with, and look more at the detail the UK is clearly suffering catastrophically from COVID. If you seriously think we are genuinely 9th in Europe then I don't know what else I can say.

[theo_luddite]

Seriously SCO?

You still haven't checked Taiwan out have you?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronaviru...ry/taiwan/

Cases - 842
Deaths - 7 (seven, yes, seven) . Last one recorded in May last year.
Recovered - 731.

Don't ask me about the exact maths, but whether its 7 or 700, it makes our clowns look like complete and utter f*ckwits, either side of the pond.

Nobody is bothered about wearing masks, standing 2m (or 6') apart, everyone is doing wtf they normally do. Sports, work, shopping, parties, you name it they are doing it. We're sat at home getting pissed on our own until we've eaten all the fresh stuff and drunk our own booze and we need to go back to the local supermarket, and hope the local super spreaders aren't all in there at the same time.

Taiwan
Population - 23.6 million (about 1/3rd ish give or take, of us)
Relative Land Mass - we are 7x bigger in the UK, you work your own relative land mass out

[St Charles Owl]

Of course population matters to a degree but not when you are using it to lump together nations in the manner that you have there. I'd look more at the effects on mortality during the pandemic and it shows you Britain and Spain have suffered the most, but drill down and Spain has a significantly older population and a culture of generations sharing accommodation (like Italy in that respect) . So adjusting for age structure is important too.

When you remove the nations we shouldn't be getting compared with, and look more at the detail the UK is clearly suffering catastrophically from COVID. If you seriously think we are genuinely 9th in Europe then I don't know what else I can say.

I agree that a lot goes into analysing the numbers, but your statement was that only the totals count because our numbers are bigger than most countries. Yes the UK is 9th and 16th in the metrics I used and yes we can discount those countries like San Marino and Andorra from comparison, so as I said I was comparing to other larger Western Europe countries when I named those we were behind.

---

Population density does not capture the finer points of how people gather together though. Take Hong Kong,Seoul or Taipei which are all high pop density areas but they have all limited covid 19 cases because their governments have successfully protected people.... but also because they take into consideration the connections between communities, healthcare access etc etc. Rather than just looking at crowding. Nor has density particularly predicted the diseases course in the US.

Seriously SCO?

You still haven't checked Taiwan out have you?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronaviru...ry/taiwan/

Cases - 842
Deaths - 7 (seven, yes, seven) . Last one recorded in May last year.
Recovered - 731.

Don't ask me about the exact maths, but whether its 7 or 700, it makes our clowns look like complete and utter f*ckwits, either side of the pond.

Nobody is bothered about wearing masks, standing 2m (or 6') apart, everyone is doing wtf they normally do. Sports, work, shopping, parties, you name it they are doing it. We're sat at home getting pissed on our own until we've eaten all the fresh stuff and drunk our own booze and we need to go back to the local supermarket, and hope the local super spreaders aren't all in there at the same time.

Taiwan
Population - 23.6 million (about 1/3rd ish give or take, of us)
Relative Land Mass - we are 7x bigger in the UK, you work your own relative land mass out

All these places you mention have absolutely done a better job, so why? For starters people in those countries typically wear a mask at the slightest sign of any transmittable disease and they generally do as their leaders instruct them to. You could also suggest their numbers are not accurate, which goes for a lot of countries. Ritchie said it above, in the Western world we have seen protests about lockdowns, refusal to wear a mask and a refusal to socially distance whether it be protests or family gatherings and churches. The UK is doing better than the US, but is not much worse than Italy, Spain and France as similar examples.

You say these countries have successfully protected their people, how did they do that and why has no major Western country managed the same thing? Australia and New Zealand have seen great success but both completely closed their borders to both citizens and foreigners something we didn't do and still haven't. You mention supermarkets but surely people in Taiwan still had to go food shopping, why didn't it spread there like it has across the West? My point is still the same, Western governments almost across the board have failed to stop this pandemic and virtually all deserve criticism, sure with Trump and the Tories at the top of the pile but they are not the only ones. Western countries, and in particular a lot of politicians put their economies ahead of the pandemic, especially early on and yet once the cat was out the bag they then instigated measures that crippled economies anyway, again what did Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan do differently? I don't know the answer, and I am sure its a multitude of things including their basic freedoms for starters but we need to be looking at it because this won't be the last pandemic we see.

[hibeejim21]

Australia and New Zealand are developed island nations and perhaps thats who we should be doing the comparisons with rather than Bosnia,North Macedonia and San Marino. 9th in Europe ffs
Tell you something, the way we're all being slowly conditioned to simply accept mass death as a inevitable consequence of this gang in power is giving me the serious fear.

Meantime in Wales, Mark Drakeford “We won’t get another delivery of the Pfizer vaccine until the very end of January or maybe the beginning of February, so that 250,000 doses has got to last us six weeks.”

[theo_luddite]

Quelle surprise - yet another U-Turn down in the Westminster cul-de-sac that our Government lives in. The only surprise is how long it took for this one.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/20...sh-schools