[Toy Soldier]

I think my opinion on this is two-fold. They're muddling along as best they can right now - all governments are. No one knew what to do. We have the benefit of HINDSIGHT in sayi g that SK got it right but in truth, #1 we don't actually know for certain why the situation in SK has been better, it's just best-guess and #2 we only know that something they did worked by looking back on the data we have now, not much was known at the time, and there was conflicting scientific advice. The government actually changed path RELATIVELY quickly when presented with more evidence.


Zooming out a bit and looking at the bigger picture though; governments (not just ours) have had warnings going back YEARS to start preparing for a global pandemic. And not just any pandemic, they even knew it was likely to be a respiratory SARS-like virus. They have had over a decade to fill warehouses with PPE and other medical equipment, have contingency plans in place both practical and financial, to have extra ICU space sitting "on standby" permanently and to ensure that the health service is robust and properly staffed.

They chose to not only ignore the warnings and to fail to prepare any of those specific measures, but also deliberately undermined and underfunded the health service, mostly for personal for financial gain... And deported/forced out half of the workforce... Leaving the NHS in the weakest and most precarious position it's ever been and headed into a pandemic.

So short term, it's been a confusing mess and expecting that any government could have got it 100% right is a bit unrealistic. But over the longer term, they've made a series of monumental **** ups that could and should have been avoided. We should have been ready. The science was there the warnings had been given - several years ago. They were ignored.