I thought you hated the NHS?

There were other countries which were very vulnerable to this. Greece has a very high lived population density (~40% of its total population lives in flats in Athens) and they also happened to have ~100 schools visiting N.Italy in February.

Slovenia has tens of thousands of workers crossing the border daily to work in N.Italy. Both countries also have weak health care systems (weaker than ours), have a look though at the measures they took in mid-March and where they are now.

The fact it was not overwhelmed speaks to the sucess of the government policy at the time. Spain and Italy were overwhelmed. And I do consider their healthcare superior to ours.

You've managed to contradict yourself, as far as I can judge.

If the simple message seven weeks ago needed clarification surely it was blindingly obvious that a more nuanced message would need even more clarification?

Look, I've been involved in similar exercises in the corporate world.  You plan carefully, you test the messages, you ensure that you have answers to the inevitable "What about this...?" and "Why that?".  You provide the additional information simultaneously and you have people available to answer the questions and provide background as necessary.  It is not rocket science.

I think that is fair. Summer UV levels will also help in the Northern Hemisphere

We will rumble along with a daily death toll of between 100-200 throughout the Summer. Maybe it will peter out or rise again in September. No one knows, not even the experts

I think this is probably what they will do and they will wait for the possible vaccine. They will only open their borders if the epidemic is contained throughout Europe. Their economy will recover more quickly than other countries, where transmission lingers.

When you look at the stats for ICU deaths it's not difficult to conclude that the NHS wasn't overwhelmed because hundreds (thousands?) of the old and vulnerable were left to die at home or in care homes. They didn't even get a chance to overwhelm the NHS.

It speaks to the hardwork and bravery of NHS staff who put their lives on the line without the correct PPE. About 200 have lost their lives so far. Zero in Germany

We wouldn't have been 'virtually back to normal' because the measures taken weren't designed to eliminate the virus, merely to contain it.

You really don't seem to grasp the basics.

I never said back to normal. I said back to February type conditions which is definitely possible. Eliminating the virus entirely not so much.

And this too

This govt is guilty of gross negligence and manslaughter. Think Hillsborough multiplied several thousand fold

This is no different to many other European countries. Italian care home fatalities are probably worse than the UK.

Sweden's death toll per capita is bad, but they kept their economic engine running, so will also recover  quickly. 

We have the worst of both worlds. Potential for mass unemployment and small business failures, decimation of the retail and hospitality sector etc , in addition to terrible human cost. 

We are a global laughing stock, second only to America

No.

People are 'down on the Government' for bigging up a speech by Bozo that contained advice which was confusing and muddled. Which didn't set out clear changes to the restrictions and was full of if's and perhapses. Which didn't explain the measures they would implement to ensure that a test/trace/quarantine process was successful. Which was at times contradictory and will be seized on by the idiots who want to break the restrictions as a carte blanche to do so.

So that makes it ok then? A few other countries are as shitty as us

I'll inscribe that on the graves of the dead

The new NHS contact tracing app won't work on older phones or Huawei mobiles

The app is limited to phones with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and also running either Apple iOS 11 upwards or Android 8 upwards

https://www.lbcnews.co.uk/uk-news/new-nhsx-contact-trace-app-wont-work-on-huawei/

If you want it to be less bad then perhaps stop pushing your inate right to go to the pub so voraciously. The governments advice today is basically use common sense. The main reason this is not going to work is because people don't have common sense.

In an alternative universe where you ran the show, how bad would things have got?

Got a source for this?

Beast - you were the one who wanted to keep the pubs open from the outset, so I don't think you have any basis for criticism.

The statistician on Marr was interesting yesterday morning - he stated that international comparisons for like countries is completely pointless - the real issue is that we did not do as well as Germany, not that we have been in the same league as Italy, France and Spain.

"Move along, nothing to see here" 

Was Italy overwhelmed or was it just Lombardy, or part of Lombardy, ie Bergamo? Lombardy was the part of Europe which got hit first and worked as a warning to everywhere else so other places had time to adapt.

I believe that Madrid also was hit earlier than we were too which is where we saw people lying on the floor, it was not the whole of Spain which was overwhelmed.

Not seen anyone say this but i think that in the UK we have been very lucky. London is a city where there are always lots of businesspeople and tourists from around the world walking around, going out to bars etc and my local tube is absolutely rammed with people for over an hour in the morning. As i have mentioned before, on my normal trip into work there may be over 10 people within 2 metres of me for 10-20 minutes. Instead of Lombardy getting hit first it could easily have been the whole of London.

I know that everyone will start shouting about different methods of gathering stats but FWIW a comparison of different urban areas in the tweet below.

We’ve also added lots of new data for the worst-hit cities and regions in the world

• We now have high-quality weekly data for Manaus and other Brazilian cities
• We’ve added Istanbul, the epicentre of Turkey’s outbreak
• Fresh data in Jakarta shows thousands of excess deaths pic.twitter.com/aBJnLm4mqR

— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) May 6, 2020

True, but like Brexit, I changed my mind on the lockdown. We should have closed our borders immediately as you say 

Being the most charitable I possibly can be, compare the excess deaths in Italy/UK with official death counts. Italy has an undercount 2-3x as high as the UK with complete data in the UK being several weeks ahead of Italy.

If you want to know more about the specific situation in Italian care homes: here is one source of many

https://www.politico.eu/article/the-silent-coronavirus-covid19-massacre-in-italy-milan-lombardy-nursing-care-homes-elderly/