I think under the circumstances, HMG have doe a fantastic job reacting to unprecedented events. Its not their fault that we are back at these discussions, rather the fault of the great British unwashed who are too selfish and stupid to take basic precautions.
I agree Thingy,
It so easy for every one to blame the Gov't when blessed with the benefit of hindsight, but none of us had enough information about the Virus when many of the critical decisions needed to be taken, and whilst the opposition will point the finger now, but if they had been in power at the time they would most likely have taken very similar decisions based on the limited information available
at the time.
It is vitally important the actions of the authorities are looked at and reviewed not necessarily to apportion blame but to learn the lessons and to make contingency plans for teh future. But even having suggested there were lessons to be learnt, It does not necessarily mean the if another virus hits us, it will respond in the same way. Each new virus brings new challenges and it's a new learning process each time.
However there are some basic lessons about viral transmission where isolation protocols and the availability of PPE equipment that needs to be addressed and beefed up.
Prof. John Van Tamm and I agree that we shouldn't have taken our foot the brakes completely, and that there should still be some compulsion for maintaining social distancing and the use of masks to further reduce the spread of the infection. We are seeing increases in hospitalisations again and we are about to enter the annual increase of influenza's, and this could disguise some of the Covid infections.
We are not out of the woods yet; The vaccination process should be praised, it has been a fantastic effort and it has already saved thousand of people from being harmed or killed by the Covid virus., But all this good effort could be undone by a cohort of people who for non medical reasons, are refusing to take the vaccines, or to exercise good social distancing and protection measures, who could still derail the benefits of the vaccinations.
Whenever the Virus manages to infect a victim, it mutates a little and if it's passed on it might just have mutated in some way to defeat the effectiveness of the vaccinations. It's a slight possibility but that is how all the new variants have arisen.
The only complete solution to a virus is to remove all means for it to find a new victim so it can't be passed on. That is total 100% isolation for the victim. But the problem is this virus can infect without producing immediate symptoms and that means it can spread before its recognised and contained.
This is where general a social distancing and hygiene and vaccinations can work by reducing the routes for infection, but they will never stop it completely which is why we have to adjust to living with it at some level.
We can only hope that through mutation the virus progressively looses its virulence and severity of effect, and that the Bio Tech,s can find effective means of management of symptoms when someone is infected.