You need to be logged in to your Sky Poker account above to post discussions and comments.
You might need to refresh your page afterwards.
Options
Your Daily Question, Tuesday April 21st. Is the government handling the Covid crisis well, or badly?
Tikay10
Member, Administrator, Moderator Posts: 160,948
in Poker Chat
Leaving your political views aside - if you can - is the Government doing a good job of handling this Covid crisis? Why do you hold that view?
Comments
Great question and a tricky one.
On the fence with this. At the start of the crisis I was impressed with the freedom we were given to get out and about.
Some people, with the stocking up and being a bit silly makes me think what things would be like if there was a bigger crisis. I think a relaxed manner is reasonable to say in the way the UK Government has handled things.
I lose a bit of faith in humanity when reading of individuals buying 10 bags of pasta and leaving others searching a bit harder for the essential foods like this.
There is a video in the other topics part of the forum where a key NHS worker was reduced to tears in her car after a 48 hour shift. Not being able to buy essentials for her family, was truly heart-wrenching to watch.
I think the Government attempted to give the UK population the benefit of the doubt and it's blown up in their face a little bit. Certainly when comparing to countries like Germany and South Korea, The numbers there seem to be a lot lower so we maybe should be looking to at those countries for inspiration.
In hindsight, they did what the thought was right and it's not worked out as well as they thought I would suspect.
Chances are the lockdown could be more enforced to prevent a possible second wave that's been mentioned in the press at the moment.
7/10 for UKG
All the measures in place right now are the right ones, we were just a bit late in enforcing them.
I'm sure Haysie will be along very shortly for a more in depth analysis.
The big thing when answering this, is to think back to when this began. Hindsight is a wonderful and horrible thing.
News reports in December mentioned China was having a problem in one of its provinces, most of us were thinking more about turkey, presents, family etc.
January had pictures and news footage of a massive city in “lockdown “ . I remember saying to my brother
“ lucky it’s a communist dictatorship, they closed down a whole city on Chinese New Year, can you imagine Boris trying to do that to London the week before Christmas?”
February brought news of an outbreak in Italy, a bit closer to home but still far enough away that most people were safely going about there business and pleasure ( SPT anyone ) without too many fears.
March was when everybody started to sit up and take notice, put plans in place and take “unprecedented “ action.
We would, in a perfect world, all like our leaders to have the foresight to predict and prepare for such things. As we all know, we do not live in a perfect world. Brexit has been, just about the only thing, this country has been occupied with for the last couple of years.
For all those who will say that, the government should have had massive stockpiles of PPE or ventilators, I say , ok but, do you respond to every outbreak of something around the world, assume that it is coming your way? Remember the Ebola outbreak in Africa a few years ago? Say the government had gone out and bought ten billion pounds worth of equipment just in case. You would have had headlines in the papers “government wastes billions of pounds in stockpiling PPE and equipment “ Opposition parties would be howling about underfunded this and that. As with all things it comes down to this..... How do you pay for it?
So back to the original question. I think if the government have been following the guidance of the scientific and healthcare experts, that’s all you can ask . We have spare capacity in intensive care beds, ventilators. The problem at the moment is PPE, as of yet, as far as I understand we have not run out, but supplies are very short. Could we have mobilised the UK manufacturing sector better, quicker? Probably. They are paying a large percentage of many people’s wages, not to work. Funding for business is available, not for everyone I know, inevitably some people will fall through the cracks.
Unprecedented is the word we should all come back to. So many things , not seen before, in most of our lifetimes, have all hit the government at once. So I say YES I think they are doing a decent job , tackling a crisis that threatens us all in more ways than one.
Even if you don’t think that, now is not the time for witch-hunts. Everyone needs to pull together, play their part, which I think , the vast majority have been doing, and leave the enquires till after this pandemic has been overcome.
That's very idealistic and it's a case of what might or might not have been.
One question about PPE. If the virus has only a limited longevity outside the body (for example on PPE) then why isn't used PPE being stored, cleaned (just to make sure it's sterile) and then re used? I can't believe that in this day and age and given this crisis they are just throwing away the majority of the PPE rather than reusing it.
I am just not a fan of the PM or many members of the Cabinet.
I think there are 2 aspects of the NHS.
There are the courageous front line staff, that cant be faulted.
They turn up for work every day, and put their lives at risk, by treating patients without adequate PPE.
Then there is the management that seem to lurch from one disaster to the next, and seem unable to resolve recurring problems.
Matt Hancock looks very much like a fall guy.
The 100,000 tests per day by the end of the month don't seem likely.
Comparing our progress to the likes of Germany is very disappointing.
Either the police haven't been advised clearly, or they are incompetent.
Al in all the Government has let down NHS staff, which has cost lives, and have not acted in a professional manner.
In the press conferences they will only answer questions that they want to answer, rather than the questions that the public want answered.
Care homes are a disaster, and have probably been let down more than the NHS.
Care home deaths, and staff safety, don't seem to matter.
The Government have undeservedly patted themselves on the back for their efforts, in my view, but many companies that have tried to help, have been ignored.
Some of these ignored companies are exporting PPE to other countries, while our imports from Turkey don't seem to be arriving any time soon.
Some of the ventilator orders have been cancelled because they are not suitable.
P155 ups in Breweries.
I hope I never have to depend on them to save my life.
Steve Bell’s If ... cabinet of the goats strains every sinew
That being said, I do believe our chief scientists were taking the lead on our strategy and pushing for a lockdown, it just had to be balanced against the economic impact of shutdown and they needed time to assess and iron out stuff like the furlough scheme and school closures.
All in all, I think I would give a 6/10 but when we look at how the most successful responses were copied from our prior plans then the bit that gets me is:
"plans to protect the UK in a pandemic had once been a priority and had been well funded for the decade following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001.
“But then austerity cuts struck. “We were the envy of the world,” the source said, “but pandemic planning became a casualty of the austerity years, when there were more pressing needs.”
I think that passage above is about the truth of it. We took our eye off the ball trying to keep the machine rolling and propping things up for Brexit. Lessons to be learned.
Lockdown - social distancing should have happened long before they said.
A lot of the general public said stop Cheltenham , football , concerts etc long before
it happened. We had huge warnings from Europe , WHO told them close down Test... Test... Test, and they joked " Take it on the chin...Herd immunity is what we need . "
IMO this has been a disaster that could have been handled way much better, criminal negligence .
I don't see how its not political... its the Gov making the mistakes.
Take care, mask up and gloves on if out X
I think, overall, they are making a decent job of it.
It's easy for us all to look back & say they should have done this that or the other, but life is so much easier to predict through the rear-view mirror.
To a degree, though, my views are based on how lucky we are in this Country. Imagine the devastation this virus is going to wreak in the dense populations in parts of India (Mumbai in particular) & Bangladesh, or in refugee camps, of which, amazingly, there are still many.
I think they are doing fine and they have my support.
There have been mistakes, but they are all weve got.
Put simply, whatever Government was in power when this pandemic struck would have faced the same problems and criticism.
As far as PPE goes you could argue that the NHS has been left woefully under equipped by the current Powerholders, but I don't remember them getting any huge amount of funds / equipment etc for the years that Blair/ Brown were in power either.
Regarding the lockdown, I'm happier that it's the right rather than the left overseeing it. I dread to think what the looney Trotskyite civil liberty brigade would have done.
As for easing the restrictions, I'd rather be in lockdown too long than lift it too soon.
6/10
Its a bit like football. We all think we can / could do a better job than the coach / manager, but in reality we cant. Which is why were not in a position to do so.
Stay safe, stay sane
its in china who gives a t oss
its in Italy spain and most of Europe
its gona miss us were only a small island
let everybody travel in/out no tests
cunning plan by now Italy and spain in total lockdown I no lets go to Cheltenham wtf
like the old school report shows a lot of promise but must try harder and listen to his teachers rather than having his head buried in the sporting life