How will people know if they have had it unless they have access to tests which unfortunately appears a long way off.

Around the time of the escalation of COVID-19 cases in Italy, Boris Johnson was pre-occupied with studies into a bridge across the Irish Sea from Scotland to Ireland. Meanwhile, the morning news were reporting deaths in Italy which went something like 3, 7, 12, 17, 25 from Monday to Friday.

We know exactly what's coming, we've been paying attention. So don't make out you're in the know and nobody else knows what's going on. And please do forgive us for not joining in with your Tory tugfest.

Not really, millions of tests are on the way, being manufactured at pace by many new suppliers at very short notice. The government has bought 3.5 million and has ordered more. The idea is they can be purchased online for everyone to eventually self-test.

You do realise every nation on the planet has been ordering tens of millions of tests, of which there were very few only weeks ago given this is a novel virus? The UK is not particularly special and has been in the queue alongside everyone else. In addition, the tests need to be validated - no point sending them out if they are inaccurate, and there have been many doubts over some of the tests so far.

I realise you expect everything right here and now, in enough volume to cope with whatever demand may come, and if it doesn't happen it's obviously all down to Boris and of course it's all a disgrace. I shouldn't even need to explain why that's an idiotic expectation.

But anyway, some people will know they've had it because they had the symptoms. If you're locked in your house and a week later you get a new, constant dry cough (whether mild or debilitating) and are burning up - you've had it.

We knew it was coming, we allowed people to enter the U.K. with no checks despite the virus rapidly spreading through China. The country who handles it best was South Korea who managed to obtain tests which allowed them to understand who had the virus and act according.
We are still chasing around for test, we are having to rely on Dyson’s to produce ventilators and have ignored other companies who have offered their services.
I have said elsewhere why would you not join the EU in buying emergency equipment other than you take Brexit over peoples lives. I hope that we do not come to the stage where a Doctor must decide who lives or dies because they do not have enough ventilators.
We knew it was coming and did nothing, no preparation nothing. If you think this is acceptable then I hope it does not reach your family.

The excuse they later used for not joining was classic 'dog ate my homework' stuff, despite the fact they'd already said they wouldn't join the day before. It had Cummings' name all over it.

I used to use the excuse of 'the email must have got lost in the ether' about 15 years ago when I'd forgotten to send one, and the client rang up asking where their proof was. Seems the current government are still using it.

This virus has been a godsend for the Tories. For 10 years theyve been able to blame their incompetence on Gordon Browns decision to bail out the banks - and now just as that excuse was runing out of gas, we have coronavirus. So, brace yourselves for more austerity and inequality. Somebody will make a lot of money out of this crisis - but it wont be you.

It is legitimate to criticise the government for being slow on the uptake now we have the benefit of hindsight.

But there were a distinct lack of voices outside government calling for all that preparation back in January / February. (Apart from within the public health/epidemiology community, but then we've been conditioned to ignore experts).

Back then, most of us probably thought this was something like SARS or Ebola. A scary but distant disease that we hoped would be contained regionally and not reach us. The attitude from most people in the UK even at the start of March, was a kind of incredulity that people were talking about playing sports fixtures behind closed doors - when we have flu outbreaks every year and nobody bats an eyelid.

It's a bit like when we had the financial crisis a decade ago. During the mid-2000s, there were a handful of academic economists who were warning that the banking system was on shaky foundations and needed more regulation, but nobody really listened to them. In opposition, the Conservatives were calling for less regulation of the financial sector, not more, and as late as 2007 George Osborne was pledging to the Tory conference that the Tories would 'match Labour's spending plans' so nobody could accuse them of not investing in public services. Then the house of cards came down in 2008 and the government had to pump tons of rescue money in to stop the banking system from collapsing and prevent us from being in a situation where the average person lost their savings and deposits and businesses went bust as their credit lines were cut.

A narrative was then created in hindsight to attack Labour which was: they failed to regulate the financial service sector during the 2000s and they spent too much on public services, and yet neither of these lines had been used by the opposition before the crisis happened - the Tories were advocating less regulation and matching Labour's spending. All a load of disingenuous bullocks.

So, when it comes to criticising the government this time, I think we have to be fair. When you hear commentators saying "why weren't you talking about ordering ventilators back when you were talking about bonging Big Ben for Brexit and building a bridge to Ireland", the fair response is, "were you talking about ventilators back then or were you talking about Big Ben and the bridge to Ireland or Priti Patel being a bully...?"

The government here has been slow on the uptake but is by no means unique in that. Italy and Spain were completely blindsided by this. We've at least learned from them and taken strong action even when unpopular. Boris's right wing government may have resembled Trump over the last year, but in this crisis, they've handled it better than Trump has. They haven't been nakedly political about it and they might end up suffering political cost because of their decisions - if their strategy works and the death count is not as big as feared, the political cost will be worse as people will say "you shut the country down and crashed the economy AND it was no worse than a bad year of flu....".

I saw Ed Balls got a lot of stick because he went on the One Show or something and basically agreed with the government's approach and especially the financial support they have given, and on twitter he is being blasted as a "Tory shill". But politics shouldn't be just about scoring points against the other side, it should be about advocating what you think is right. If Balls had been Chancellor his approach would have likely been similar to what Sunak did, hence he's saying it's right.

Really if we are going to end the old culture war and Brexit war and "come together" like people say we should, this should be a time not of making political arguments but saying OK what have we learned from this. There are some lessons here that I think there would be a consensus from most Labour supporting and Conservative supporting voters. We need to build up our capacity to deal with unexpected events. The idea that you can put everything in the hands of the private sector and let the state wither away is nonsense. Even the arch Tories in my family are all in agreement with this. When a crisis like this happens, you need a strong NHS and police and other public services with reserve capacity to step up. It also means we have to look at funding the military too. A lot of my peers who support Labour/Lib Dems/Green see the military as an afterthought and dismiss when the top brass give warnings like we aren't capable to carrying out the military operations that we used to; couldn't stage a Falklands operation again etc. We expect that there won't be a military crisis where we need them, so we can just slash their resources, but then when something happens we'll be caught with our pants down.

Also - we need to stop this trashing of academics and experts and realise that when people with a lot of knowledge about a topic warn us about something, it might be worth listening rather than just saying they are an "out of touch elite" and "the British people know what they need".

South Korea manufacture the tests. They have 5 factories dedicated to it, just as some UK companies are switching to the same task. Yes of course in your brain there should have been millions of tests immediately available despite every nation on the planet frantically trying to buy them, but you appear to be living in cloud cuckoo land.

So you think all airports should have been closed immediately? Yes, you could seal off the country, but how long for? There will be no vaccine until perhaps 2021. And it was probably already here given the tens of thousands Chinese students who travelled home and back over the Christmas break, similarly all those who travelled to Northern Italy early in the year. With a high R0 it was already spreading.

We could have locked down immediately - but again, how long for? A year? To what purpose? No-one leaves their house for what, 6 months? All the while the virus is spreading globally and is not going to go away. Then we open up again with no vaccine? Have a think about that.

Ask yourself - how long can South Korea and others stay locked down? What happens when their population - that has not been widely exposed - starts moving again? Another outbreak, back to square one.

No, you cannot escape this. The only strategy is a managed spread, allowing a significant percentage of the population to be infected in order to build widespread immunity, which is what we are doing. "Flattening the curve". It's not nice and people will die but if it comes back in cannot spread anywhere near as quickly or widely and the NHS will not be as overwhelmed as it is about to be. I'm not actually sure why I'm bothering to try and explain this again, you're either incapable of understanding or are too biased.

And I'm sure you think we should have 20,000 ventilators and associated equipment, as well as masks, gloves, etc just sitting in storage? Bearing in mind many of these items degrade over time and become useless. The fact is, every nation is ill-equipped for this and yes, doctors all over the world will have to prioritise those who will die anyway, over those with more chance of survival. Those are the stark realities of a novel pandemic, not the comfortable entitled world we've all been living in so far.

BTW it's already reached my family. My sister's husband was horrifically ill for over a week. Fortunately her family are symptom-free so far. My family and I are in day 12 of isolation for various reasons. I actually suspect (and hope) we've had it although very mild, but it's a chance I cannot take. But if we haven't had it and in about 6-8 weeks things start moving again and we all go back to work, we'll be much safer with a largely immune population around us. Do you get it yet?

You know that, do you? He spent all his time on this bridge,did he? All of his daily No.10 briefings were focused on the allegedly proposed bridge were they? He spent all his time commenting on it, rather than a few remarks? Are you positive it wasn't the media occupying far too many column inches with an amusingly unlikely story? Because if not, prove it.

I assume that's the royal "we", because all I see here is a total lack of comprehension of the UK's strategy, vastly unrealistic expectations, and surprise that things are escalating. Jolly well done you for being so intellectually advanced compared to your peers.

BTW, deaths in Italy hit 28 on 28th Feb, by which time Boris had already stated that tackling COVID19 was the government's "top priority". Hand washing and other advice had been issued and a number of COBR sessions had been held. If you're saying you wanted a total and immediate lockdown, it would have been pointless and counterproductive in the long term. The first UK death wasn't until 5th March.

And for the umpteenth time - stop politicising this. Some of the best scientists and medical experts are driving this, not Boris Johnson. Plans prepared over decades and being assessed against the experiences of other nations in recent weeks are being put into play. You cannot escape a novel pandemic. They know better than you, me, Boris and most of the human population. Has it all been perfect? No. Show me a country where it has.

And Santa Claus Suni shuffles another £10 billion quid into his Tory vote base slush fund

This time for the £150 grand a year self employed tax avoiding company directors working as limited companies for the last 10 years.

whose £3 grand a year accountants pay them minimum wage to avoid income tax, and have trouser the rest in dividends at 10% tax, thus avoiding 25% corporation tax.

And not forgetting their wives who they employ as so called company secretaries, again tax free.

Fill yer boots time lads