covid and the Billions pound cost.

Is that deliberate obtusity or are you just that desperate to defend Boris' mistakes in January 2020 ?? ?? 

Well done - and now try reading it.


"NERVTAG does not advise port of entry screening, irrespective of the current limited understanding of the epidemiology."

"There are no practical preventative actions that HMG might undertake ahead of Chinese New Year"

So you couldn't explain. However, you might have something there, Steve. Population density had a lot to do with initial spread. Funny you've bought up population density now that you have been defeated on non pharmaceutical interventions, which were well meaning but pointless and harmful.

You lost your argument. It's not my problem if you try to support a position which is easily pole axed by a few figures from public domains.
I don't care how it looks, if I think I am right I will post that opinion with links to back them up.
I see you've stopped debating the actual issue and reverted to veiled personal attacks. Now THAT is not a good look.

Yes I agree entirely. I think the govt did a reasonable job given that no one knew what they were dealing with. The main complaint I have is their use of Neil Ferguson's model. He's a well-known charlatan and doomster as his failures have shown:

[Imperial College epidemiologist Neil] Ferguson was behind the disputed research that sparked the mass culling of eleven million sheep and cattle during the 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. He also predicted that up to 150,000 people could die. There were fewer than 200 deaths.  

In 2002, Ferguson predicted that up to 50,000 people would likely die from exposure to BSE (mad cow disease) in beef. In the U.K., there were only 177 deaths from BSE.

In 2005, Ferguson predicted that up to 150 million people could be killed from bird flu. In the end, only 282 people died worldwide from the disease between 2003 and 2009.

In 2009, a government estimate, based on Ferguson’s advice, said a “reasonable worst-case scenario” was that the swine flu would lead to 65,000 British deaths. In the end, swine flu killed 457 people in the U.K.

Last March, Ferguson admitted that his Imperial College model of the COVID-19 disease was based on undocumented, 13-year-old computer code that was intended to be used for a feared influenza pandemic, rather than a coronavirus.

Sweden isn't a direct comparison with the UK for lots of reasons (which all work against the UK) but I wasn't directly comparing the two countries. I was just pointing out that Sweden did better (from the point of view of excess deaths) than most of Europe. 
 

You seem to have a "primary school understanding" of what maths is. The predictions of the models that SAGE used are science not maths. There's a big difference. 

And I've just said that Sweden has about the lowest excess deaths in Europe - which seems to indicate that not locking down was a good strategy. But I acknowledge that it's a tricky calculation. Locking down can "buy time" in that it does slow down the rate of transmission. But lockdowns have bad effects on the general health of the population (because of the lack of care for other illnesses). These are only found out later - and we're beginning to realise these effects with excess deaths. I don't think govts will be quite so quick to lockdown in future. 
   

The biggest laugh was the UK measurement which included deaths FOR ANY REASON within 28 days of a positive test which meant they actually included a drunk who walked up the M4 motorway off his face at 3am and got creamed by an HGV in those dying of COVID because he’d tested positive the week before.

Let’s get something straight. I’ve had this bloody pox THREE times now. Once long before we knew it was leaving Chinese dead in the streets, when several Chinese “businessmen” and their secret service escorts gave it to one of our company drivers and it manifested as the worst bout of flu ever, once when a bloody illegal immigrant brought it to the immigration hearing and infected all the bloody staff including my wife, killing two, maiming three and bloody nearly killing me, and once last month when a nasty sniffle gave a positive LFT.

So is this disease a killer ? Yes, to some unfortunate buggers it is. It’s taken two people my wife knew. Two people with no particularly serious health issues who were culled through being old. It’s buggered the health of a bloke I know who is now an injecting diabetic and it’s given me heart failure with only 30% ejected volume which should be over 50%.

Yesterday I tried to take a Dutch Hoe and scrape the weeds off our patio and driveway. I had to stop after each 18 inches of patio slab and sit down because I couldn’t breathe properly THATS what this pox has done to me.

BUT was shitloads of money wasted or thrown at pals who make Arfur Daley look an honest man ? Bloody right it was.