Genuinely interested to get a view from as many as possible as to when this is all done, I.e we have a vaccine, post first and second wave etc. What would you personally deem a government failure, equally a government success?

I can already see a moving of the goalposts, people accusing others of politicising in the press, so think it’s important for people to outline at this stage where they think the U.K. should be landing at the end of this.

For me, if we end up in top 5 deaths per capita in Europe come the end of this I think the government will have serious questions to answer, equally 10th or below per capita in Europe the government have done a good job. I will genuinely hold my hands up and say I got it wrong if the above comes to fruition.

Equally a key measure I will look at come the end of this will be overall increase on death, year on year average versus countries we are on a similar economic footing to, I.e Germany, France, Spain.

Edited by SavoyTruffle (11 Apr 2020 12.45pm)

All advertised in the last ten days. So nice to see the NHS being responsible with its funding when it's apparently desperate for every penny.

I think the total number of deaths will be less the result of governmental action and more cultural practice. I became convinced of this from Japan's statistics, which you can then compare to less stand offish nations.

So unless your population density is very low then the spread is going to occur with a very infectious disease such as this.

Personally my view has always been that after an initial early partial lockdown to secure borders, isolate the vulnerable within the government's reach and inject NHS funding my approach is that herd immunity is the only practical approach that can be taken.

So unless a country is going to spend the entire time in lockdown until a vaccine then the virus deaths will differ dependent upon cultural practices and population density. I view the UK approach as a very expensive attempted lockdown, where in reality herd immunity continued just slower than in say Sweden.

So, in my view, the countries that spent less and did their best on promoting and implementing the best hygiene practices are those that will be historically elevated the most.

Sweden's curve might peak higher but it will also lower far quicker. It will have spent far less and its deaths like most countries will be culturally and density dependent.

I don't believe that history will view the creation of a world recession as being the appropriate response to a new virus with a kill rate of two to three percent.

Edited by Stirlingsays (11 Apr 2020 2.10pm)

For me there is no point in look at any stats for actual answers to who got it right and who did not until the end of 2021. The virus will fade as we go into the summer anyway, only to re-emerge come October.

Perhaps in a years time we might have a better idea but nothing definite until the end of 2021 going into the Spring of 2022.

Problem is that politically the notion of Herd Immunity, and what that means in terms of actually wanting wide scale infection is a no-no. Telling people they have to catch it and then move on with their lives is far to brutal a fact for our current society to accept.

But that's the truth of it. More deaths now might actually be a sign of getting this right.

Edited by Matov (11 Apr 2020 2.48pm)