In this thread, I'll summarise how badly things have gone with #coronavirus.

I'll cover the unnecessary deaths, how lack of compliance with procedures was causal and the way those procedures could fail with #COVIDー19

You may not know, we used to be best in the world at this.
There are now sufficient data to see the death rate comparisons. We can justify them with evidence and sources.

Today we're on track for at least 60,000 #Coronavirusdead or more.

If we had just followed inadequate but established procedures that would be 20,000 fewer, 40,000.
If we had followed Asia best practice from New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan or HK.

AND followed WHO guidelines on Airport Controls and detection

AND the advice of our contact trace experts who prevented a UK MERS epidemic in 2013?

It could be under 1000.
But if advisors had had their way and followed Herd Immunity, it would be 500,000.

Contrary to Mr Johnson's wicked assertion on Sunday the lockdown did not prevent 500K deaths since no UK procedure had ever created that risk.

Lockdown prevent his 500K self inflicted wound.
The only reason that 500K became even a possibility is that Cabinet and Advisory team somehow did the impossible.

In the middle of a crisis they ignored standing procedure and made stuff up. Like gods.

The result is a minimum of 20,000 people dead who should not be.
However if we had listened to the Community Medicine Fraternity who were regarded as World Leading in 2013, and if we had opened our eyes to other countries instead of insisting we had nothing to learn (direct quote), up to 59,000 might have survived.
I'll add links to substantiate the above with sources as we go on. The only area that is supposition is the impossible decision to break policy.

The rest is evidential.

Note we have two pandemic strategies. 2017 is a refresh. 2011 has the tactics. 2011 is a more important read
It felt through this whole crisis that UKGov couldn't walk and chew gum. They had to learn about ventilators, then PPE, then testing, and recently contact tracing, and finally people have noticed airport dispersion, the true horrible negligence decision that made this worse.
Oddly we expected this.
We prepared for bad leadership.

It is not unusual. It's a classic group think reaction. You see it in every psychological study on crisis group think.

Instead of learning and then solving the problem leaders make it worse as they panic and evade.
This was so obviously happening that I wrote a thread on it early on, including the linked psychology references.

Except. It couldn't happen. You call it bunny in the headlights and the UK had made sure we were ready for bunnies. Read this link later. https://twitter.com/atatimelikethis/status/1245367418467336193?s=19
Some civil service hero knew the risk. We built procedure and policy distributed so widely to make sure leadership shock couldnt kill.

Rock solid
They had to follow it. Unless PM, health sec and whole of cabinet decided to throw procedure out during a crisis...an impossibility.
We even anticipated the ambiguity of a new virus and the risk it might not be flu.

The answer to both was to coordinate with the WHO, follow their advice and learn quickly from best practice in the countries affected.

Again rock solid, even if we messed up we had a back up.
Except much to the horror of most of the scientists watching this back in February, all that was suddenly not there. Some even openly wondered if the cabinet hadn't looked at pandemic guidelines in a pandemic crisis.

There was no detection phase, we didn't consult with WHO.
Things that people woke up to in April are documented in that first phase.

From the way MH or BJ speak you'd thinking contact tracing and surveillance were new ideas.

Nope. They were the first thing to do, to attempt to shut this down.
That's how we'd always operated MERS, SARS, H1N1. Preventing spread when there are just a few cases is how we stop epidemics

This thread to read later, is on preventing a 2013 MERS epidemic. WHO, other country advice. Contact tracing. Airports https://twitter.com/atatimelikethis/status/1249954232406626305?s=19
Somehow, inexplicably at the time, we
👎Dismissed WHO advice
👎Followed the opposite approach to best practice
👎 Stood down contact tracing - no, really
👎 ignored airport advice. Didn't even try to check or monitor. Priti Patel even disappeared in the middle of the period.
Containment. Ask what did we contain? I find nothing.

Let's just deal with airports because it's so inept and negligent.

It's maybe the only place we followed process. Badly.For flu if we were first we'd take no airport action.

But this wasn't flu and we were last. Lucky us.
So a different approach, all documented, should have kicked in. We should have been listening to the successful countries and the WHO who retracted flu advice in February and told everyone not to shut down air travel but to put in 6 controls to slow transmission quickly.
I remember it clearly. The horror as some UKGov spin merchant on C4News spun "slow" into "airport controls would not STOP" the virus. That whole sordid story is in the next read later attachment.

You remember the unchecked planes landing from Italy? https://twitter.com/atatimelikethis/status/1260267885806718982?s=19
Of course there is so much more to discuss. Where did the crazy herd immunity plan come from? Why did we stand down the people who could most help us? Why to this day is community medicine not represented in Nerve Tag or SAGE?

How can we have become so completely Mr Bean?
I'll answer that then sign off.
Part of the answer is Starmer's point today. International statistics fakery.

A standard method in virology should prevent that.
UK Gov have never reported it.
Another read later. It tells you we were always in bad shape. https://twitter.com/atatimelikethis/status/1246392991524229123?s=19
I see but don't excuse politicians suppressing bad news.

In science, a bad result is data to examine to look for solutions. The TLDR of the previous document is our bad news was directly correlated with a refusal to follow WHO best practice.

Dissemble with a virus. Kill people
We have the scientific method to stop this sort of suppression of data to ensure we don't compound errors.

We also hid regional data.
We now know they show a disastrous airport strategy that shotgunned corona everywhere all at once. The UK is globally unique in doing this. Shame
Which brings me to the supposition. How could we ignore process and mess up to this degree?

My final "read later" follows a Walter Mitty/ Dunning-K type. Day dreaming of their brilliance. With too little understanding of the science of virology. https://twitter.com/atatimelikethis/status/1241091002871545863?s=19
When you read that you can follow the entire chain of events

Every step from UK Gov papers badly misinterpreted by a fool

The Sunday Times fingered Cummmings for the deed.

I suspect it's more complicated. Someone, maybe he, did create this fiasco.

But then they all signed up
It's, of course, all so horribly predictable. We learn through experience, and we presume that if we're successful, our experience was consequential...

That's all nonsense. But we think it's true.

Where were the experiences of our Cabinet formed? What did they learn would work?
And how could a group of people exchange what would have been a victory of 1000, or even 59,000 deaths, for an alternative plan delivering 500,000 deaths?

And yet describe the latter as a good outcome? And themselves as the architects of a brilliant British plan.

Hmm.
We have killed more citizens (not subjects) unnecessarily with these immoral decisions than ever in history.

We just remembered 75 years after other innocents died

We now have our generation's innocents.

Then they had Nuremberg.

Now we have the Hague.

They all signed up.
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