O/T:- ⚠️Impressed with the leadership [The UK Party Politics Thread]

[Evesham Pie]

Japan has had 5,503 deaths. They are far more densely populated than us, much nearer to Wuhan so had less time to prepare and like us are an island.

True, but they have much less international travel (inbound / outbound) which will also be a factor. The UK is a much more significant international travel hub, with approximately 3x the volume of international travellers than Japan. It does beg the question though why it took the UK a year to close its borders.

[Mapperleypie]

It does beg the question though why it took the UK a year to close its borders.

It certainly does, it's a wrong-headed policy decision. You only have to look at the crowds at sporting events in Aus and NZ to see that by effectively closing their borders and using quarantine effectively these countries (whilst severely limited in regards to international travel) are pretty much back to normal day-to-day and they don't have 100,000 dead.

Given this is a government that has a mandate to be tough on immigration and would have had strong support across the political spectrum for operating a tough border policy in regards to COVID you do have to wonder what the issue is.

As with PPE and Track and Trace I'm sure it will become clear that the border policy was based around the wealth of a Tory donor or a friend of the Tories, there is no other rational explanation.

[i961pie]

True, but they have much less international travel (inbound / outbound) which will also be a factor. The UK is a much more significant international travel hub, with approximately 3x the volume of international travellers than Japan. It does beg the question though why it took the UK a year to close its borders.

Countries like New Zealand have done well but you can't compare it to the UK, their nearest neighbour is over a 3 hour plane journey away and they only have a 4 million population.

[andy6025]

Quite right BH, population density should be factored in. In the countries named, Canada and Australia, there are huge areas with no population at all. If it were possible to calculate a country's area where people actually live and their numbers of Covid deaths, then compare the UK figures with those such as Australia and Canada and other "civilised" countries the results may be somewhat similar to the UK's. If we could scatter our population over a greater area there would certainly be less person to person contact and so less contagion.

You’re absolutely correct that Canada and Australia have huge areas with no population at all, which completely contradicts your attempted point that our death rate is equivalent to yours. Try again.

[Old_pie]

You’re absolutely correct that Canada and Australia have huge areas with no population at all, which completely contradicts your attempted point that our death rate is equivalent to yours. Try again.

Good spot Andy Pandy - yes people on the whole certainly in Australia live in the cities. But I have a friend in Perth, WA and we spoke on the phone a few weeks ago. He pointed out that Perth isolated by closing THE road north, closing THE road South (well there's two I think), closing THE road East, closing The Airport and closing The port. Try doing that in Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, London etc etc. And we have too many people within easy reach, like Nottingham is about as far away from the sea as you can get and that is about 80miles, not 800 or several thousand.

[queenslandpie]

Good spot Andy Pandy - yes people on the whole certainly in Australia live in the cities. But I have a friend in Perth, WA and we spoke on the phone a few weeks ago. He pointed out that Perth isolated by closing THE road north, closing THE road South (well there's two I think), closing THE road East, closing The Airport and closing The port. Try doing that in Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, London etc etc. And we have too many people within easy reach, like Nottingham is about as far away from the sea as you can get and that is about 80miles, not 800 or several thousand.

Closing roads ( known here as border restrictions) is easy. The main thing along with isolating aspects of the population that has resulted in BAU in here is Hotel Isolation of incoming Aussies. Which the UK has only just introduced. You can google it I cant be arsed to post stats but its saved this country along with the other thing that always has and always will - The Tyranny of distance. Hope all are well. COYP. QP.

[LaxtonLad]

You’re absolutely correct that Canada and Australia have huge areas with no population at all, which completely contradicts your attempted point that our death rate is equivalent to yours. Try again.

No it doesn't. Take away these huge areas and you have a small country with an equivalent population pro rata. Of course you can use your own judgement when it comes to how much huge area you take away.

Try again but, "...our..."? "...yours"?

[TheBlackHorse]

... we're in danger of having a discussion here ! ...
the consensus medical view last March was that the virus could take up to 10/12 days to emerge if you were positive; and that testing was wildly inaccurate, so checking flight arrivals would be useless. So do you believe our scientists were wrong/useless/confused? Do you believe overseas scientists were smarter or the masks and their testing was for placebo effect? In any event will we ever know the extent to which flight arrivals brought in the virus- guess many did. Easy with hindsight to say we should have stopped all arrivals; but at that time there were so many displaced persons you can imagine the clamour from mardy Brit's! ...

[countygump]

Seems we now have a single dose vaccine.


https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coron...?ocid=msedgdhp

[BanjoPie]

Seems we now have a single dose vaccine.


https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coron...?ocid=msedgdhp

I would prefer to keep topping it up - a bit like I do with wine