My take on this from reading the thread.
Let’s be clear, coronavirus is a very difficult virus to contain and governments of any stripe would have been struggling to deal with this. The UK is not the only country to struggle to keep a lid on this global pandemic.
That said, I think the blame lies somewhere in the middle for Britain faring worse than other countries for virus deaths and in seeing this second spike in cases. There is no doubt in my mind that the government locked down too late first time round, and by the time they did, the virus had already taken its hold. I also believe the test track and trace system, far from being ‘world beating’ isn’t fit for purpose, and it’s hard to properly open workplaces and schools without this at least functioning properly.
On the contrary, although many have followed the rules, particularly at the start of the lockdown when the ‘stay home’ message was clear, there have been a large minority that have flouted them. This, in my opinion, has got worse since Cummings broke the rules and was allowed to get away with doing so. People rightly thought that if it was one rule for them and an entirely different one for those making them, then why should they bother? Where I live in Manchester, you regularly see people meeting up for house parties and other large gatherings, or people who go into shops without a mask and don’t social distance. There are times when I’m in a minority wearing a mask! It doesn’t help the fact there’s very little enforcement so people feel they can get away with it, and there’s no doubt the rules and all these local lockdowns can be very contradictory and confusing which doesn’t help compliance.
So it’s a bit of both really. There is no doubt though that the governments of other countries have dealt with this whole crisis a lot better. Take Germany for instance, it had a relatively small first wave and isn’t seeing the same kind of spike in cases as Spain and France and ourselves the second time round. A lot of that is down to a swift and effective government response and a far superior testing set-up.
I do hope the latest restrictions by the government work, although I have my doubts, and that we don’t go into a second national lockdown. I do also hope that a vaccine is round the corner, but I do believe we’ve got months more of these restrictions to come and that coronavirus will eventually be something we learn to live with.
