When there was the outbreak in northern Italy is the date for me. That's when the situation in Europe became really serious. It was around half term so we basically should have looked at repatriating any holiday makers but also either blocking or testing everyone else looking to come. Instead, months later we still have flights arriving from around the world and we still can't be arsed checking if the passengers are infected or not.

There was someone on Radio 4 earlier who explained that on her recent visit to Dubai she was tested and had the results back within hours. Not sure why we can't do that rather than shutting down now.

But back then, if the tests weren't available, the only way to protect ourselves was to close inward migration. Close down early and hard and you could have cut weeks off the length of this lockdown. They dithered, thought they were smarter than everyone else dealing with it and wasted precious weeks before finally accepting the inevitable. The blood of tens of thousands of people, as well as the thousands of businesses and millions of jobs inevitably lost is on their hands for their inaction during those weeks.

Well Cheltenham went ahead ending 13 Mar 2020, of course there was a lot of stories going around but it was still pretty normal day to day here. And Irish people were still free to travel for example. To suggest that a PM is going to shut down the 6/7th biggest economy in the world at that point is frankly ridiculous. So we're talking what, a week? A negligible difference to deaths may be but the consequences of lockdown are horrendous as we are experiencing, so they had to be 100% certain that the consequences of lockdown were a price worth paying.

The blood of tens of thousands of people 

is of course at the hands of the ccp

Fact is if Johnson hadn't been asleep at the wheel at the start of this year our death numbers could have been similar to Germany's and we could be much, much further down the road to re-opening all sectors of the economy. But we had a blithering idiot too concerned with brexit, not arsed about COBRA meetings, and insisting business carry on as usual.


We knew this was coming. It was one of the main items on the news since the start of the year and somehow we still ended up being unprepared for it. Just utter negligence.

I hate to break it to you but you can get a statistical model to come up with any result you want, especially one that gets you in the news. He's claiming deaths would only have been 11K so I'm unsure you've given it your utmost attention

Germany have 8k deaths. We have 36K. That is reality, no model required.

Fair enough, a bloke on a betting forum up against experienced scientific modellers. I'll go with your undoubted virology expertise and agree that the number dead would indeed only have been negligbly higher

you people are living in a fantasy land. I'm definitely being trolled here

Very similar to the government's futile attempt to explain what and why they've done things.

I'm still waiting for an explanation of how lockdown costs thousands of lives.

You are a Tory apologist Cider,they made a complete hames of it,the lot should be run out of the country for the good of the people who they have grossly misserved.

Just a realist unfortunately lapsy pa.

Cider I was really hoping you were going to post a long reply as to why lockdown costs thousands of lives. I will be patient.

Irish death rate is 325 per million, England is 498. Hardly a big difference considering they have nothing like London or the levels on international travel.

I looked up hames too, even I didn't know what that meant, I'm assuming lapsy pa thinks Ireland's corona record is something to be proud of.

I'm Irish (half)

Maybe the true death rate is say 800+? enough out there to say the figure are massaged,i tend to believe that.

Nothing to be proud of,but transparent, the briefings are factual, the welfare of their citizens takes precedence over the economy, fair fecks

Apology accepted I posted a link for you. The close inverse correlation between gdp and death rates in developed countries is widely accepted.