Great Britain is Getting Hammered By the CoronaVirus

What apples and what oranges? I cited the current stats

So what. He obviously didn't take it seriously at first either.

I'm sure he does now.

But how stupid do you have to be to insist on shaking hands with other world leaders, during a pandemic? He must be about as dumb as trump.

 

The only thing about the OP I like to comment on is that I haven't heard from @alexa in a while. I hope she is doing fine. I occasionally disagree with her on some issues (although not much when it comes to any of the issues that would get the Trump crowd here riled up), but she is one of my favorite posters here.

 

Just that the stats are a very poor way of evaluating responses between nations, far to many differences in testing regimes, reporting in deaths due to Covid etc.

I agree, I don’t think he was taking seriously enough to begin with, but jumping on the fact he was shaking hands and having this attributed to his illness is wrong.

We should be looking at how different leaders have reacted, how they respond to criticism, are they bringing the nation together or being divisive. The differences across the world are massive.

 

Have you actually bothered to check if any Australians have criticised their government's response on this forum? Easy enough to check.

OK, rhetorical question. That would require a few mouse clicks, which would eat into your ranting time. A number of Australian posters have been critical of the Australian government, though it has actually done a fair job.

I'm betting your understanding of how things work in the UK is about the same.

 

Apparently some of our members simply needed to be reminded that that ARE allowed to talk about their own government's response to the virus for them to open the flood . . . well, at least the trickle gates. Still not sure that they really mean it though. Compared to what many of them routinely say about our government their responses seem fairly tame and nearly diffident.

 

Gasp! Two posters have now responded with scathing examples of essentially praising their governments with exquisitely faint damns. Impressive!

 

So that would be a 'no, I didn't bother to go to the Australian forum to see if people had been critical of the government'. All too much like hard work. Besides, when you intuitively 'know' the answer why bother spending a minute doing research? Just gets in the way of sayin' stuff.

 

Saw one yesterday.
Kind of reminds me of a newspaper down in New Zealand (when I was down there) comparing their crime rate to the US, and their population was less than Atlanta. They probably had less than 20 angry Maoris hanging around the square in Christchurch at any given time while the Wizard was on his ladder.

 

That's way we listen to you. Hopefully you got some local board for your outlet against, where is that now? Or I could just watch some Royal Jordanian motorcycle vid...daily life thingy...I can't watch too many though because I might have a flashback and ride on the WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD.

 

Oh yeah, don't worry, I really undersand the distinction, and I find it headbangingly annoying when people invoke their right to free speech when being punished either by their employer or by public opinion for something dumb they have said. The right to free speech is a protection from reprisal by the government and that is all.
My only point was that the OP was decrying the lack of free speech in Europe, but in the states we are now accepting a large amount of curtailing of open speech for fear of reprisals and excessive consequences. I have never felt that my right to express myself has been hampered in any way living in France. I suppose if I was a holocaust denier calling out for the extermination of jews I would feel differently. But not exactly a group of people I feel sorry for for their right to say garbage being cutrtailed.

 

Actually I was -- mostly anyway -- suggesting a lack of free speech as an explanation as to why without exception all our UK and European posters have been just perfectly fine with their own government's handling of the pandemic and yet so very many of them act as if they are aching to lynch Trump and his administration. It seemed . . . peculiar. So I speculated that it was fear of being punished by their governments that kept them quiet on the issue.

 

So British users on this forum don't criticize their government on this very forum because they have to fear being punished?
This means the British government is observing this website, would identify users from Britain and then punish them if they voice their criticism - seriously? That doesn't make any sense at all. I'm one hundred percent sure, Downing Street has other things to do than observing this very website, they most certainly don't even know this forum exists.

 

Well fair enough. So to answer your question: empathically no. No one is not posting here about their government's response for fear of reprisals from the state. Absolutely no one. My facebook feed is littered with anti Macron memes, articles, and insults. And those names are publc (as opposed to having pseudonyms here). The difference between the limits of free speech in europe and the US are really very very small. And it is mostly reserved for holocaust deniers and hate speech (with a little libel on the side). Let's remember that Trump and Palin would love to get the US to be closer to Europe in regards to libel laws).
I don't know if you seriously thought that in Europe people were afraid of criticizing the government, but let me be very clear: that is not the case.
Pretty sure it's because no one here cares.

Boris Johnson reacted much much too late to the virus (especially since like in the US they had a fair warning with what was already happening in Italy) his response was eactly like Trump's: not serious, improvised, and too late. Shame on him.

See: no fear.

 

So then the very same Britishers eager to criticize Trump over everything are utterly happy that first Britain went with the Herd Immunity approach and then panicked and applied Trump's self-isolation approach instead? Yet still they criticize Trump when their government is doing the same things?

 

It's a constant among the American people who have not traveled to believe that other Western nations are infringing on freedom of expression.

In the end, maybe you're better off not seeing the rest of the world, you're convictions wouldn't get over it.

 

Would you like to compare the "Hate speech" laws here and the UK?

 

That you would have to ask said British users and I don't think the self-isolation approach is "Trump's approach", pretty much every country is doing it. I didn't understand London's initial reaction, but it's not my problem.
Your OP suggestion regarding governmental punishment based on something one posts here on this website doesn't make any sense. Governments don't care about this website.

 

I wouldn't say we are perfectly fine with it at all, just that we don’t seem to see the same amount of disunity in addressing it the public or answering questions.

At a time when unity is needed, all we seem to see on both sides is hyper critical observations and an inability offer any sort accommodation on the other sides views.

It’s like any positive statement has to be accompanied by some insult or criticism of the other side,

 

Can do if you like, what would you like to compare?

 

The UK is an excellent example of why we don't want govt run healthcare. Their hospitals are underfunded and over run in the name of budget cuts.

 

Strange that we now have more critical care capacity free than before the crisis started, the equivalent to 50 district hospitals has been freed up. 2 temporary hospitals have been built with 5 more under construction.

strategic supplies are being distributed to where they are needed most. No national auction, with supplies going to the highest bidder. Why the hell you're using the normal supply to distribute I don’t know, guess those companies can make just that bit more profit.

The government has identified those most at risk and they now have priority delivery of medicine and online grocery deliveries so that they can self isolate. And shockingly people are being still be treated for free, zero cost with no worries about being made bankrupt due to treatment costs.

We have had over 750,000 people who have volunteered to help the NHS to help deliver medicine and food locally for such a terrible institution. There were so many people applying to help they have had to temporarily stop accepting people. To put that into perspective that’s over 1% of the population.

So I guess that it truly is terrible to have a national heath service at times like these

 

The bolded is my point exactly.

 

Correct, they are faring much worse.

 

What’s your point? That people volunteering to help deliver things to those who have been advised to self isolate is a failure in healthcare? Just how exactly? And how is have too many volunteers a bad thing? They’re currently processing applications to see who can help where.

They aren’t helping out on wards or treating patients ffs.

 

My point is what I said in my first post. The system was over loaded before the virus really even got started. The government cut the budget for hospitals. That can happen to any govt health care system. You proved my point by stating that they turned away people until they got volunteers.

Hospitals struggling to afford new equipment after NHS budget cuts
https://www.theguardian.com/society...to-afford-new-equipment-after-nhs-budget-cuts

10 charts that show why the NHS is in trouble
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-42572110

NHS to suffer £2.7bn cuts 'after government miscalculation of public sector pension costs', research suggests
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ons-public-sector-pension-costs-a8562491.html