I’m not excusing anything I asked you what country in Europe has succeeded in eradicating the virus, and you haven’t responded, even Germany which practically survived the first wave is struggling

Are you okay :laugh:

Drakeford gave everyone here in Wales like 4 hours notice for Lockdown. Shocking.

Does not not point to how worried they are, it’s not been done for fun :shrug:

No that was Stupid
2 weeks is not long enough


Keir got it so wrong.

Cause Johnson has got it so right, so far

If you say so!

Ok maybe Europe are failing at this (not Canary Islands though much safer and stricter there) but still some places have been successful and did the right thing, Australia and New Zealand are doing fantastic. They shut their border and we didn't.

No they are racing the Virus
but the Virus also has a Turbo engine.

Idiots but it was obvious this was going to happen, giving people enough hours to escape london. I remember when we had 5 days notice of Lockdown 2 and the next day loads of people rushed to retail shops that it felt like december.

Yes BBC Laura
said it to the PM and Whitty.

The amount of people on social media who have waited for whatever reason to leave their Christmas shopping until last minute (as in starting this coming Monday) and now realising everywhere they need to go will be closed is worrying.

If the gifts they want aren't in the kids section of somewhere "essential" or they can get them delivered this week from online they're stuffed basically. Seen so many saying their kids will be going without this Christmas, sad on top of everything else. :sad:

What would be the perfect timeframe then to give the public as notice? They give less than 24 hours and this rush happens, they give a week or more and still a mad rush happens so what are they supposed to do? it's always going to be a damned if they do damned if they dont situation.

Imo there isnt a perfect timeframe, there isnt a perfect solution to any of the issues and there isnt an ideal scenario that's going to suit everyone, the fact is it's an ongoing ever changing never seen before situation we are in, there is no rule book telling anyone how to deal with it and what to do next and the same applies to countries worldwide it's not just the UK government that have made stupid slow decisions throughout all of this and most people wont deny that but its this added to the ongoing stupidity and selfishness of the public that's causing issues and the blame certainly doesnt lie solely with one party.

OK Darren

Very caring comments from you.

I don't get why people are so defensive over the gov when people are rightfully angry and annoyed with how they handled this, yes rule breakers are to blame as well and no one is saying any different but when you look at all the stupid stuff the gov have done then ofc they will get most of the blame. Not shutting the borders, acting too late, not listening to advice given and not shutting something that mostly caused the huge spike in cases....a lot of issues right from the start and still carrying it on. Yeah maybe there isn't a perfect timeframe regarding the train station situation but no one is that naïve to think that wouldn't have happened, they had enough time to pack and go so a better plan should have been put in place especially after how stupid it was to give a 5 days notice. We're not strict enough which is another issue.

The North have basically been in lockdown for months and told that its our fault. No one came to our defence :shrug:

Apparently the Vaccine is meant to be reasonably effective against the new strain.

But obviously we'll just have to wait and see.

No other European Country is going into tier 4 five days before Christmas after the leader saying that he didn't want to ruin peoples Christmas.

Exactly....all we were told was we were selfish, not following the rules and it was our own fault. Now its a new strain causing exponential rises in the south....not the packed high streets and shoppers in London not social distancing, people on tubes etc.

I feel for those in Tier 4 and hope its enough to drive the cases down. People now have to take responsibility for their health and that of those close to them. The Gov can only do so much I know but they also need to be clear on the rules and shut the bloody schools till we get this under control again.

people have been relaxed about following guidelines and it has been evident across the country. If it's a choice between a relaxed 5 days and a lockdown that saves lives I don't think its up for debate really.

Boris has always pushed the concept of a normal christmas right back to the summer and I could never understand that personally. I was even more surprised that the other uk administrations also bought into it having first hand information on how infections were trending. I therefore don't get why everyone is blaming Boris, other nations were in agreement, the media were pushing for it all the way.

Going back to the summer, The eat out to help out scheme was appropriate in the summer when the infection rate was low, but the moment universities and schools went back we have been on a downward spiral ever since, and it is so obvious to everyone that they are the root cause of infections we have today and yet the whole of the UK is saying that education should not be interrupted .... it's madness, pure and simple

Thus far it's thought to be individually just as effective against all currently known strains of Covid. The issue is that faster spread = more people need to be vaccinated for effective herd immunity (the first step to driving a virus out of circulation). But a vaccinated person (assuming it's effective and assuming they produce an immune response - remember that 5% to 10% of people won't) should be just as protected from this strain as they were from OG Covid.

Worth remembering that there were already multiple strains I suppose, and that the "Europe strain" (the one that most of Europe and the US have, thought to originate in Italy) was already faster-spreading than the original Chinese strain.

We don't know much about the newly discovered strain yet; there's always the possibility that it's weaker (in terms of symptoms and outcomes) than previous strains.

It isn't "obvious" at all - it's certainly a valid hypothesis but cases tanked to almost nothing in the summer months and we've been on a downward spiral into winter since the end of summer - exactly in line with any other respiratory-spread virus. The simplest and most obvious explanation is that it started spreading again as soon as the weather shifted. They also reopened a tonne of other things (non-essential shopping, bars and pubs, sit-in dining) at around the same time the schools opened and again - a statistic I keep repeating - the trends in Scotland and England have gone in tandem every step of the way despite Scottish schools opening almost a full month earlier. If the major factor was schools, the graphs would reflect that, with cases north of the border starting to increase a month earlier than South. But they don't, the graphs overlap, thus whatever the variable is that caused the second wave, it's something that occurred at the same time in Scotland and England. That is simple deductive logic.

I'm not saying that cases don't spread in schools or even really making a case for them not closing for lockdown... I am saying though that the idea that not opening the schools back in August/September would have stopped the second wave or really had much of an impact on case numbers at all is at best "dubious" and in my opinion "wishful-thinking nonsense".

"If only we had done this, if only we had done that, maybe if we do THIS or THAT now..."

.... no, it's a seasonal virus that upsurged in October/November. This is not a mystery.