You can euphemistically call it ‘the system’, Michael. Its more accurate name is ‘the Government’.

Marr has just mentioned 20,000 new cases a day? Where have all these come from as I thought we were reporting on the whole around 4k a day? If this is the case, really enforces that just about all figures are null and void, not just here. I suppose we are capturing the 4k. Is the extra 16k an estimate of those going undetected/not accounted for?

Early on, it was always one of the important questions, in my mind at least, whether the curve would be symmetrical or be significantly skewed, with a long right tail. The measure of the effectiveness of control measures is the length of that tail.

No - you’re wrong because Facebook says so. 

https://www.facebook.com/722370783/posts/10157368704805784/?d=n

The post implies the Government should be immune from criticism because, in a nutshell, we live in a crowded country compared to others in Europe. 

Everyone is lapping this of course, ignoring all the other epic failings by the Government. To many, they simply can do no wrong. Scary. 

Given the lamentable mixed messages over the last few days perhaps the new slogan should be:

YOUR GOVT GOT IT WRONG

TOO MANY HAVE DIED

WE DON'T HAVE A CLUE

I also think there is a culture of fear amongst the lobby journos

 Yes very frightening i should imagine?

It's a good job I'm not much of a drinker Joe! 

As I said when this was posted yesterday, I can't believe someone has created a website just to tell us that. 

 I did mean the point about Population Density

The green will be subliminal messaging. It’s a GO colour. 

This new messaging is a total clusterfuck. 

The lengthening of the tail is the consequence of the measures, however inadequate, to limit the peak. If you want a symmetrical curve you do absolutely nothing and have a mega crisis with deaths into six digits and a collapsed healthcare system and then it's over. What we see is the result of a government that thought symmetry was worth considering, until reality bit hard.

Discounting Belgium in the tables due to them including suspected deaths in their figures, we are still 3rd worst in Europe going by deaths per million. Then when you've got the ONS figures saying the death toll is closer to 52k not 31k the point becomes invalid.

On the subject of numbers, I found this article (from the Italian National Institute of Statistics) interesting. Out of the 25000 or so excess deaths from 20th Feb to the 31st March, only 54% of these excess deaths were attributed to Covid-19.

https://www.istat.it/it/files//2020/05/Istat-ISS_-eng.pdf 

Surely that leaves only two main scenarios? Either the number of Covid-19 related deaths is significantly higher than reported in Italy or there is/was another serious underlying issue. I think analysis over time will paint a much clearer picture than daily statistics can mange.

I know you did, and I agree that it’s possible that we’re likely to be disproportionately affected by the virus because of this - hopefully this will eventually become clear. 

It’s more the fact that there’s an assumption by some that the Government have done no wrong.

I take your point, Justin. The media can have quite a fuzzy interpretation of this convention in my experience, but as you say the formality of the "lobby" is well understood. Equally, a confidential government adviser is not an unknown person, but someone providing confidential information and advice to a client. They will have accountability through that client and through law of course. What is not known is where much information on the Web has been gathered - even on here. Many of us have privileged or confidential information from previous "incarnations" which we would not discuss. I expect you do too. What I find obnoxious are the leakers or trolls who for money or attention and with the disingenuous excuse of "public good" put information into the public domain which they were contractually required to keep private. [From that I exclude making a report to the police if a law has been broken.]

The boredom factor is another issue - where the media have flogged an issue to death before those in charge have had the moment to present it. I have always disliked feeling I am being manipulated rather than being informed.

R.

Succinct and expressed brilliantly. 

👍

That's quite an accurate observation of how things work these days. Responsibility, and thus risk, is assumed to rest with the individual.

Who's to blame? Why, the man on the Clapham omnibus of course!

Apologies, I didn't realise it had been posted yesterday 

Not sure what your issue with it being created in the first place though.

From the Sunday Times:

In the first admission from within government that the lockdown might have been mishandled, a senior official said: “The view is that the public will forgive us for mistakes made when going into the lockdown but they won’t forgive us for mistakes made coming out of it.”

Forgive HMG for the ‘mistakes’ which have cost tens of thousands of lives?

Maybe it was also that the enforcement was 'wishy washy'...

Met police group criticises 'wishy washy' government instructions

The government's pandemic response has been "wishy-washy", a body representing police officers in London has told BBC Radio 4, amid concerns that the public has begun ignoring lockdown restrictions.

Metropolitan Police Federation chairman Ken Marsh said authorities "needed to be firmer right from the beginning".

"Had we been very stringent from the off - it is painful, but it’s not overly painful in terms of what you’re actually being asked to do - then I think we would have a better result now," Marsh said.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52601754

Uk vs. European average.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-average?country=GBR+Europe

We're not covering ourselves in glory.

I posted it yesterday. I think it is a necessary record of the timeline of events.

There is little doubt in my own mind that HMG's failure during the first couple of months of this year to realise the threat that Covid-19 posed to the UK and act sufficiently to mitigate its threat has led to many, many more people dying from the virus in this country than might otherwise have been the case. Even if I was a lifelong Conservative voter, I think I would find it almost impossible at the moment to defend the way the government has handled this crisis right from its beginning.

As I have said numerous times before, I don't blame HMG in any way for the virus appearing in the first place; we all know who was responsible for that. I think most people realise that it was going to be virtually impossible to keep it out of the UK for the duration and that lives would be lost once it did reach the UK. However, the fact that more than 30,000 have now died is, to me anyway, a disgrace to this nation and has exposed many serious shortcomings not only in what was and wasn't done during the months leading up to the crisis, but also over a much longer period of time.

Once this is over, I really think that a major root and brach review is going to be needed in the UK to find out where we have gone wrong as a country in the past, and to make sure we learn the lessons to ensure as much as is humanly possible that a catastrophe likes this never happens again.