At this point the “cure” has been far worse than the disease from what I can see. Initial lockdown for a month or two to “stop the nhs being overwhelmed” would have been ok, but as Sweden proved probably unnecessary.In the meantime I’ve seen predictions of up to 200k early deaths due to the reaction around Covid (cancer patients missing appointments or not contacting being an immediate one) but also other issues going untreated, and then there is toll of loneliness, and quite soon poverty to make lives less pleasant and shorter too.Absolutely hand washing, masks on public transport and in supermarkets (could have been introduced when there was more value but hey ho).The issue with the approach here (and elsewhere) but here in particular - its looking like £500bn of government borrowing this year massively increasing debt, which means years of high tax/ low growth or possibly high inflation devaluing chances for everyone from young people to pensioners.The state and government here have been particularly incompetent in their measures and approach. Test and trace especially so with the usual centralised rigid approach so loved by bureaucrats. Some simple changes could be made to maintain people’s livelihoods and quality of life compared to the current practice (allowing more than two households to mix - currently if single and meeting a single friend indoors that is the maximum allowed, following other countries around testing passengers as they enter the UK rather than block rushed bans......)We will all die at some stage (apologies if this is a shock to anyone), obviously we don’t want to bring it sooner if we don’t have to, but the over-reaction has been extreme by scientists and ministers who don’t need to personally deal with the consequences of losing jobs, or incurring costs to fall in line with specific rules many of which are not well supported. No balance of risks appears to have been considered whatsoever.We needed more balance but the government and much of the UK public seemed to lose their grips early on and now we see fewer brits returning to offices etc than anywhere else.We will be living with the consequences of this over-reaction for a long time, it was initially justified as one thing, then another and the evolution of policy from the initial NHS time to prepare to lockdown forever was never explained. In the meantime government departments wasting money like it’s going out of fashion.And you wonder why some people are highly dubious and why this has fed many conspiracy theories - hmmmm! (For me incompetence on a staggering scale rather than conspiracy)
Mike Warman ● 2058d