Anyone watching Question Time.

[redial]

Fiona Bruce not exactly coming across as neutral.

As for the 40,000 deaths. I think this underlines we are an over populated island. Not that is any consolation to those having lost loved ones.

Edited June 4, 2020 by redial

[Rob85]

I'm not watching it but in comparison to other European countries I think we have areas that are far more densely populated so a disease will spread quite badly considering how dense in the head a lot of our population seems to be as well. There's no point bitching that we have higher deaths than in some countries when we record them differently anyway but it's a sad fact that someone has to top the table. It seems the Swedes are the ones eating the humble pie though admitting than their approach really screwed the pooch and people died needlessly with their top advisor saying they should have locked down more.

I wish people would get off the government's back, of course they will make mistakes, of course some people even in government will break their own rules but looking at the mass demonstrations now on an unrelated issue I don't think anyone cares anymore about lockdown and social distancing. 

My issue with the general public is when the news reports come out the people are focusing on this trend of deaths starting to decline, in reality that means nothing if the infection rate is still high. Taking that into account all it would have taken is a couple of people infected at each demonstration to start off the 2nd wave in spectacular style.

That escalated to rant level quite quickly haha

[johnphilip]

18 minutes ago, Rob85 said:

I'm not watching it but in comparison to other European countries I think we have areas that are far more densely populated so a disease will spread quite badly considering how dense in the head a lot of our population seems to be as well. There's no point bitching that we have higher deaths than in some countries when we record them differently anyway but it's a sad fact that someone has to top the table. It seems the Swedes are the ones eating the humble pie though admitting than their approach really screwed the pooch and people died needlessly with their top advisor saying they should have locked down more.

I wish people would get off the government's back, of course they will make mistakes, of course some people even in government will break their own rules but looking at the mass demonstrations now on an unrelated issue I don't think anyone cares anymore about lockdown and social distancing. 

My issue with the general public is when the news reports come out the people are focusing on this trend of deaths starting to decline, in reality that means nothing if the infection rate is still high. Taking that into account all it would have taken is a couple of people infected at each demonstration to start off the 2nd wave in spectacular style.

That escalated to rant level quite quickly haha

Great post . All well said.

Edited June 4, 2020 by johnphilip

[PPP]

Yep, you have to wonder what, if anything goes through the vacuous space in some of these ‘tards heads..

Im sure that George’s family want nothing less than random protests in his name causing the deaths of 00,000s globally ..

It seems their only stimulus is ‘me read it on internet, me told internet good and me do it...hopefully me get new TV’

[Raja Clavata]

7 hours ago, redial said:

Fiona Bruce not exactly coming across as neutral.

As for the 40,000 deaths. I think this underlines we are an over populated island. Not that is any consolation to those having lost loved ones.

There are apparently over 20,000 additional unexplained deaths in the UK so far this year, so the real number is most likely over 60,000.

Personally, without qualification, I don't see how any of these numbers underline that we are an over populated island, I don't contest the fact we are but struggle to see the direct correlation between the two.

I am still not aware of the government publishing a statement defending how their projected death toll from the first wave of 20,000 was so far from reality, but it's not a pressing matter right now.

[Cheshirelad]

40,000+ people die every year from flu/bronchitis/pneumonia etc. It's all just getting blamed on Covid19 now.

[Dave at kelton]

“I am still not aware of the government publishing a statement defending how their projected death toll from the first wave of 20,000 was so far from reality, but it's not a pressing matter right now.”
 

This has no relevance as circumstances change on a daily basis. This virus is entirely unpredictable until fully understood, unlike the behaviour of the morons that all visit the same beauty spots and expect to be isolated. This virus will take its course and as it is very clear you cannot lock everyone away until a vaccine is found, if ever, and we will see deaths rise. That is the only predictable bit of the whole thing.

as to the media I stopped watching news channels or programmes such as this two months ago when it became clear that they were not reporting neutrally but stirring up hysteria.

[Raja Clavata]

17 minutes ago, Dave at kelton said:

“I am still not aware of the government publishing a statement defending how their projected death toll from the first wave of 20,000 was so far from reality, but it's not a pressing matter right now.”
 

This has no relevance as circumstances change on a daily basis.

I beg to differ.

[WalkedUp]

The UK is less densely populated than Belgium and half the density of the Netherlands. The European city states and small island nations obviously all have high population densities. We have almost the exact same population density as Germany. https://www.worldometers.info/population/countries-in-europe-by-population/

[Boristhedog]

"I am still not aware of the government publishing a statement defending how their projected death toll from the first wave of 20,000 was so far from reality, but it's not a pressing matter right now.”

 

I'm not sure 20,000 was a projected death toll as I remember the CMO saying, very early on, something along the lines of that if we keep total deaths below 20,000 we should be doing well, and, I suspect, that was more in hope than a projection.

 

[Raja Clavata]

6 hours ago, Boristhedog said:

"I am still not aware of the government publishing a statement defending how their projected death toll from the first wave of 20,000 was so far from reality, but it's not a pressing matter right now.”

 

I'm not sure 20,000 was a projected death toll as I remember the CMO saying, very early on, something along the lines of that if we keep total deaths below 20,000 we should be doing well, and, I suspect, that was more in hope than a projection.

 

So you think they just plucked the number out of the air?

[Boristhedog]

Probably not, as I said, more in hope given the potential threat at the time. 

[Nuke]

22 hours ago, Rob85 said:

It seems the Swedes are the ones eating the humble pie though admitting than their approach really screwed the pooch and people died needlessly with their top advisor saying they should have locked down more.

Not really, they are saying we failed to protect the elderly despite the lock down, otherwise they have no real regrets.

/Markus

[JohnfromUK]

On 04/06/2020 at 23:42, Rob85 said:

That escalated to rant level quite quickly

It may be a rant, but hard to disagree

On 05/06/2020 at 10:26, Boristhedog said:

I'm not sure 20,000 was a projected death toll as I remember the CMO saying, very early on, something along the lines of that if we keep total deaths below 20,000 we should be doing well, and, I suspect, that was more in hope than a projection.

You are quite right on that.

[Raja Clavata]

One interpretation of an at best ambiguous statement, made off the back data based on a very flawed mathematical model does not a fact / right vs. wrong make 🙂 

[Raja Clavata]

@JohnfromUK I don't know if you saw on the news but Prof Ferguson has reappeared and reinforces the point I made here on the statement around the 20,000 deaths. It does not make your view invalid or wrong but at least perhaps points to the fact that we were referring to at least two different press conferences 👍

[JohnfromUK]

7 minutes ago, Raja Clavata said:

@JohnfromUK I don't know if you saw on the news but Prof Ferguson has reappeared and reinforces the point I made here on the statement around the 20,000 deaths. It does not make your view invalid or wrong but at least perhaps points to the fact that we were referring to at least two different press conferences 👍

My recollection was that it was said that "if we kept deaths to 20,000 we would have done quite well" or something along those lines.  The interpretation I put on it at the time was that we were to expect significant deaths - and very likely in excess of 20,000.

Someone else here https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8409677/Coronavirus-deaths-HALF-official-toll.html thinks that the current 50,000 is much too high ..........

The truth is that we don't really know what it is - it is too high, and there are lots or reasons for that, some of which are due to government actions/inactions, some of which are due to 'events' like Cheltenham (local to me) and football in Liverpool(?), some of which relate to the age and health of the UK population, the population density, and some of which relate to the UK's role as an international transport hub with over a million arrivals per month.  Lots of reasons.

However - our NHS was not overwhelmed, we didn't run out of beds, ICU beds, ventilators, oxygen, and had spare capacity.

Deaths would have been lower had we 'locked down sooner' and had we closed the borders ........... but then lots of people would have been stranded in other countries.  I also read that the majority of infections came from Spain and France, followed by Italy.  Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I can accept that the idea that at the time - the 'scientific advice was followed ....... but if you have a room full of 20 scientists - you probably have at least 15 different opinions!

Had we locked down fully and closed borders tightly much earlier - the government now might be facing huge criticism based on "we have been through all this pain, ruined the economy, people stranded overseas dying away from relatives in foreign countries, and all for only 10,000 deaths - which is less than the annual flu toll in a bad year.  It was a no win - and we took the path we did.