Strinket wrote:That’d be the Sweden who, in the last week, have had more deaths per capita than any other European country. https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-healt ... KKBN22V26V Yes, that's what I'd posted but, their biggest advantage over every other nation is that they dont have to come out of lockdown. Other nations risk a second wave / spike but, Sweden do not. It's still too early to say whether they have got things right but, their ecconomy is certainly in better shape than anyone in Europe and probably most of the rest of the world.

Strinket wrote:That’d be the Sweden who, in the last week, have had more deaths per capita than any other European country. https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-healt ... KKBN22V26V Yes, that's what I'd posted but, their biggest advantage over every other nation is that they dont have to come out of lockdown. Other nations risk a second wave / spike but, Sweden do not. It's still too early to say whether they have got things right but, their ecconomy is certainly in better shape than anyone in Europe and probably most of the rest of the world.

So. which is it? Lockdown, risk two spikes in deaths, or No Lockdown, one spike, overall deaths comparable and a healthy economy.
If, and it's a big if, we get a second spike, it won't be as big as the first. It's a virus, it won't go away, we are unlikely to find a vaccine in the near future, and at some stage we are all going to have to be exposed to it. Sadly people will die. Same as it ever was.

What do you know about the second spike and why wont it be as large as the first wave ?
IF there was to be free movement, the numbers could be huge and greater than before.

On balance, IF every nation lived like the Swedes and their population was similarly sparse in density, then the Swedish model looks better in the longer term.
However, most countries are nothing like Sweden, the UK certainly isn't.

There are murmurings of further restrictions being lifted in the coming weeks and I guess we just have to hope that any increases in numbers contracting the virus are minimal.
The balance in re opening the ecconomy versus preventing the spread sure is a fine line.

Time will tell as Wrencat has pointed the situation in Sweden is very different to here in the UK. If you take away the outliers like Monaco and the Vatican City the UK is the third most densely populated country in Europe after the Netherlands and Belgium. The advantages of Sweden, unlikely a catastrophic second wave and a less damaged economy - but it is very doubtful the UK could have coped with no lockdown unless we were prepared to accept a higher death rate and collateral externality of that decision? One thing is certain it will take a will to get the economy back on its feet.

Yes but, the big question is when ?

Quick question Sal, if you had a hundred quid in your pocket and were a gambling man, how much of your £100 would you wager on the track and trace app being fully functional (or close to it) by the 1st June.
This has the same whiff as the 100,000 tests PER DAY that were promised, but rarely hit, by the end of May.

I absolutely understand the need to get good news out there but, the unnecessary exaggeration / spin /lies by Boris & Co is just bloody annoying and perpetuates the lack of trust in what they tell the masses.
It's no wonder parents are too scared to send their kids back to school and the teachers dont feel that they will be safe.

I think when lives are on the line, including your own, people are going to see more clearly. While enough people saw Johnson as as a blustering charmer to let him do something that felt distant, like the run the country, when it comes to something this immediate people are just not going to trust him. He’s a poor fit for bad times. Corbyn would have been like supply teacher trying to reason with an unruly class, so that’d have been difficult too, I absolutely admit. The Johnson cult is a lot less durable (and less unhealthy) than that around Trump, imo - there isn’t that unquestioning faith that Trump can still rely on from his base.

I think the emergence people from political fringes, like Corbyn and Johnson and Rees-Mogg, was an understandable reaction against the smooth managerial style of the likes of Blair, Cameron and Clegg. In turn, I can see Starmer and Sunak representing a reaction against the oddballs.

Not a penny - there is simply no chance - if I were the Tories I would pick a hot spot offer an inducement for people to download the app and run a trial and report on it everyday. The general public could see things were happening and it would give the developers a breathing space of a month.

I agree with your last statement - lying is completely counter-productive. The next election will be all about trust - who do you trust to run the country and these lies will come back again and again. That's why I can't see Boris leading the country into the next election.

The government would do better to announce these things with a bit of restraint, and be honest that these things take time. But that's not where we're at in this current political cycle. It has to be overinflated hyperbole every single time. Charisma over clarity. Brawn over brains. "We'll fight them on the beaches..." and all that populist nonsense.

Instead of, "we will have a system in place by x date, and it will be capable of testing x million people, and it will be world-leading, best in its class, great British technology, with a 100% accuracy rate". Why can't they just say, "we are working on a competent system to deal with the ever increasing demands of this pandemic". How hard is that? I know it's a bit boring, and it doesn't appeal to the clapping seal brigade, who just want tossing a fish, but it saves a lot of squabbling down the line.

I often see Boris fans on social media asking his critics why they want the UK to fail. They don't want the UK to fail. It's just inevitable when you hype something up so much, and you don't deliver, it's viewed as a failure in the eyes of others.

Classic "over promise, under deliver"

I was taught early on in my career to 'keep a bit back'. The work place equavalent of telling your wife you'll be home half an hour later than you know you will be. That way everybody's happy!