What in the name of Jehovah are you babbling about?
Probably not. Doesn’t mean BJ is doing his job well though
I’m not defending Johnson, the response of the UK government has been all over the shop. Their initial approach was wrong, but we don’t know what their outcome will be.
But who among western governments are doing a good job, and by what measure? The data is all over the place, I’m not sure what conclusions can be drawn yet. Italy has almost 3,000 deaths or over 8% mortality, a staggering number, and yet Germany has only 0.2% mortality, not that dissimilar to the seasonal flu. How can it be that extreme a difference? Do the number of confirmed cases have much relationship to the number infected, is it 5 times, 10 times, 100 times? We simply have no idea, as people with mild symptoms are not being tested or don’t request testing.
How many will die because they can’t get the treatment they need for other conditions because hospitals are overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases? How many will die now and in the future due to the economy collapsing?
Thousands. Maybe hundreds of thousands. I think most people accept that this is an unprecedented situation and are just looking for some leadership and a sense that their leaders are doing all they can.
I have that feeling about our government right now whilst knowing the response hasn’t been perfect. I don’t think the UK population has that same comfort. Are the schools still open ovet there?
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There’s something about this disease that we may not understand yet. In the US cases so far (close to 10,000 confirmed cases), apparently a surprising number of younger people are ending up in hospitals. This sounds like it’s in conflict with the earlier cases in Asia where it was claimed most of those who got very sick were older. But, it could also be that a huge number of younger people are actually infected, but are asymptomatic. Why are most younger people not getting very sick or hardly sick at all, but a subset are getting sick enough to be hospitalized?
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In my opinion a big problem in the US and UK was the early messaging from the leaders. It ranged from slightly to outright dismissive of the impending challenges. A lot of people in the UK still operating in the “it’s only a flu” mindset. The lack of action in calling off large scale events last week only reinforced that view.
You will also have a considerable cohort in the UK and even to a lesser extent Ireland who will go against the government advice purely because they “won’t be told what to do”. Like look at those drunken apes in the Benidorm videos.
Also due to their testing policy the UK’s number of cases are now going to stay artificially low which will mean people still won’t get the message as to how rampant it is.
It’s very hard to know how it’s all going to play out. Hopefully the US and UK get lucky and some effective treatments are discovered before they find themselves in the midst of national disasters on a bigger scale than Italy.
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That’s exactly it — you put a message out there and for a number of reasons people will cling to it. Boris now claiming the science has changed is some laugh given what every other country was doing over the last 4 weeks.While i’ve criticized our lot for being slow to take certain actions, at least they’ve been clear about the dangers and impact of this from the off and havent tried to sugarcoat it. Well done Leo cc @tallback @TheUlteriorMotive
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You couldn’t just be more right. There was a segment on last night where it was Mostly people aged over 75 interviewed and they were saying they wouldn’t stay inside for three months for fear of a flu and a few were saying they’d rather die than sit inside for three months. At least Leo and them have made sure the majority of Irish people are taking it serious now.
The job of the scientists and medical experts is to provide options and recommend one to be taken. The UK version seems to match with Sweden and Netherlands but no one else.
The job of the political leadership is to bring the great mass of the country with them on the chosen path. The criticism of Johnson & Trump individually is that they have not succeeded on this so far. I think that is valid. Their colleagues in government are part of this.
Northern Ireland is going to be an increasing problem for us. If the UK make an absolute balls of it, and it looks like they’ll be worse placed than here, we’ll have limited ability to stop spill over unless the North align with us over London. That includes potentially banning travel between the islands for a period. Arlene and the headbangers will refuse on principle and more people will die
Joe Brolly summed up the north’s plight in a short interview yesterday - i posted on the other thread.
They have 88 ICU beds … and they were willing to follow UK off a cliff. We would have been taking streams of people coming over the border that we are not able for… nullifying all our own measures.
Obesity could be a bit of an outlier in the US
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The inverse of this is also true. If the uk somehow got it right then streams of people would have been going north.
An all island strategy is the only thing that made sense and just shows you how far apart that is from happening going forward.
The likes of @tallback and @Tim_Riggins supported partition for years but are now bemoaning the North acting differently when it doesnt suit 
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Countless times the total incompetence of Trump and Johnson in handling this has been shown, the disinformation, the calling it a hoax, the saying it would “go away like a miracle”, Trump’s hobbling of his own CDC and refusal to test, Johnspn’s accelerationist plan to kill of 250k of his own people.
Every single time you’ve ignored it.
One could only imagine how you and others here had Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders been in charge and reacted remotely like what Trump and Johnson are doing.
The fact is, they wouldn’t and haven’t because they don’t live in a fantasy world like right-wing populists like you and your scummy heroes.
Time for you to fuck off this thread because you’ve provided nothing but batshit crazy politicised disinformation and propaganda.
The late @Sidney had you bang to rights in 2015.
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One word. Trust. They have none.
Trump and Johnson have spent their whole lives being flagrant liars and built their whole appeal around that.
This is a situation where trust is essential.
It’s entirely rational and sensible to not believe a single word that comes out of the mouths of Trump, Johnson and any of their spin doctors.
And again in this crisis it has been proven entirely rational and sensible to not believe a single word out of their mouths.
The pertinent question is not which governments are doing a good job, though in that score the US and UK rank at the bottom. The question is which governments have taken it seriously and provided leadership.
On that score, the US and UK in that order are again right at the bottom, way below Italy and China.
You literally can’t get worse than calling the virus a hoax, saying it would go away of its own accord like a miracle, and refusing to test anyone because you like the numbers at 0.
Like a lunatic on Fox News, most of whose viewers are not taking the threat of the virus seriously (did you ever wonder why that is?) you’ve continually and conspicuously avoided dealing with any of that.
Truth is hard. You’re not equipped to deal with it. Thank fuck lads like you weren’t around during the war.
I see seven US states have taken literally zero measures to combat the spread of the virus so far.
Quelle surprise, they’re all red states.