In truth as regards to body language, I wish he would stop nodding while someone is talking. I can't stand that. Still, more important things.

The word "union" triggers a pavlovian reaction in gammon. 

It’s nerves don’t worry about it

"The abandoning of test, track and trace" - was a consequence of not introducing border controls - the system simply became overwhelmed by community spread.

"The throwing of care home residents and staff to the wolves" - I think that is a somewhat over egging of the pudding. I would put it this way - all Government efforts were geared to keeping the NHS operational (given the scenes witnessed in Lombardy and Spain) - care homes were what in the phraseology is termed as "collateral damage". On Newsnight the other night they had a female care home provider on and she at least was very measured in what she said about the situation, rather than using intemperate language such as yours.

"The PPE debacle" - not a problem peculiar to this country - everybody was chasing down what supplies they could get hold of - a good reason for now declaring such provision as a strategic industry with sufficient domestic capability to supply our needs.

"The herd immunity fiasco" - that came from the scientific community and was expressed by many epidemiologists in the early days - it is still being pursued in Sweden. Not a "fiasco" but if you decide to go down that route (and there are cogent reasons for doing it) you have to be prepared first, which means properly shielding vulnerable groups and care homes first.

"The track record of lying and obsfucation throughout" - all politicians attempt cover their tracks - not restricted by ideology or type.

I am fed up with this pointless and fruitless debate - keeping it out as far as possible reduces the speed of community spread and allows testing, track and trace to operate. That is bleedin' obvious as Basil Fawlty would have said!

Yes they were!

The NHS can be congratulated on the way they managed the crisis despite the dithering and dipshittery from the government. PPE scandal top of that list of course 

You are an enigma, Richard. You seem to have grasped the failure of this Govt and yet you continue to defend it. We are the 21st most populous country on the planet and yet our death toll from Covid is the 2nd highest. That is the only fact that matters.

The evidence from other countries which have allowed schools to return - properly managed, the evidence is that it does not lead to a second wave of contagion.

"Gone off the idea of herd immunity" not sure what are you talking about? And what has your obsession with Spiked got to do with my post?

The jury is out on the death toll until the longer term statistics can be properly evaluated - Reuters reported today that Italian deaths alone look to have been under-reported by 50%. But this is not some kind of league table.

Where I am furious with the UK Government is that they were so insouciant about the need for port screening and border controls until now.

But their infection rates were much lower at the time.

They should give them all a brand new car. I'm sure they would appreciate that more than a concert. 100,000 x £10,000 = £1 billion. There's enough stock around on dealers hands and they should be able to negotiate a good price with companies.

Even with a monumental amount of massaging and revision of Italy/Spain/France's statistics, the fact remains that we are the 21st most populous country on the planet, had more than a month's head start and still ended up with one of the most appalling death tolls globally. It is an absolute disgrace - we can only pray that the inevitable public inquiry gets up and running within the next 12 months.

What are the stats on new case rates in countries where schools have returned?

I can't speak for any school but my own but I know for a fact that there will be no social distancing or PPE at my school when further pupils return. I know this because my school hasn't shut, we have worked on a rota with classes of about 6 children and 4 staff - normally class sizes are between 6 and 10 with 4 - 5 staff. There has been no special cleaning, distancing is impossible and if you want hand gel you bring your own.

As a 50yr old bloke I can't say I'm particularly looking forward to more children returning but I know for a fact that despite the bluster from the unions nothing will change and I'll have to take my chances. 

Absolutely. There's no point pussy-footing around this fact. Our response simply hasn't been good enough.

it’s not MM we have spoken about this many times on here  Peter is right with his comments don’t take it personal but please try to accept it the only thing it does is buy a very small limited amount of time even who said the same thing about other viruses.

the relevant data that are available seem to indicate that restrictions on land travel would have a limited impact on containment or even on the slowing of transmission

Indeed, and it is a pretty shameful statistic it has to be said.

As I've said before, the reason IMO why the UK's death toll is now as high as it is is because of the failure by HMG to take fat and effective action back in late January and through February. The WHO first declared Covid-19 as a global health emergency on 30th January, yet the alarm wasn't raised in this country until the start of March.

It didn't help either that the PM chose to miss the first five meetings of the Cobra committee on the development of the virus when the devastation it was causing overseas was becoming all too apparent from many news reports.

Just seen this  - https://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/now-casting/ PHE/Cambridge Uni study.

Gives a breakdown of estimated IFR rates from current UK data

It was the failure to do checks at airports and to put in place restrictions on air travel during Ferbruary that was one of this government's monumental failings. Why, for instance, were people from the UK allowed to travel to Italy in February, by which time it was pretty clear that the virus was wreaking havoc in the north of the country?

I accept that restrictions on land trael would not have had much impact in terms of slowing the spread of the virus, but I'm willing to bet a grand that it was air travel rather then land travel that was the biggest factor in bringing the virus to these shores.

The countries that tightened security at their airports early on and did temperature checks on people coming in from elsewhere seem to have done rather better generally at controlling the spead of the virus than we seem to have done. We almost certainly wouldn't have been able to have kept the virus out of the UK for all time, but if more had been done three or so months ago a lot of lives in this country may well have been saved.

Proves what I have been attempting to state all day - we are trashing the economy and keeping people locked down to protect (primarily) those over 75 years old. Rather, we should protect the at risk (especially the elderly at risk) by isolating them, whilst allowing the rest of society to keep functioning.

On that topic, there was a care home on the BBC news tonight which has not suffered a single case of COVID-19 - it achieved that by having its care staff sleeping on the premises and isolating themselves along with their charges - a tough regime, but it has worked so far.

I'm not sure about this study. Gives an infection rate overall of 10% in the UK and 20% in London which sounds way too high to me. Would explain the massive drop in London cases compared to rest of the country though. London has been recording far fewer cases than the rest of the country every day for the last 10