Chris Whitty: I worry we overstated danger of Covid at start of pandemic

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...-inquiry-live/

Prof Whitty admitted that in telling the public to stay at home, officials did not make clear that the health service was “open”.

People’s reluctance to come forward as a result led to fewer patients attending A&E, calling 999, and a backlog of medical appointments on which ministers are still struggling to get a grip.

He also criticised “confusion” around face masks and admitted that he may not recommend shielding for the vulnerable again after they suffered “significant harm”.

Of course, we now know that the establishment "pandemic decision makers" partied throughout the lockdowns.

This is because Covid had a 99%+ survival rate, with an average age of death at 83 (with four comorbidities).

Adults only need to reply to this thread

No way should they have shut schools either, some 250,000 kids never came back….:shrug: don’t think any of my kids teachers are over 50 so what was the issue? I’d say anyone under 50 to keep the woke folk happy should have just been able to crack on and keep everything flowing. With the amount of oldies and lefties on here, your in for a rough ride with this thread…..:hehe:

15-0 to the critical thinkers. If it was a boxing match the ref would have stopped it ages ago! :hide:

The single most damaging event to our society for decades. First lockdown can be excused to an extent. The rest have caused far more problems than they solved.

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Originally Posted by goats

No way should they have shut schools either, some 250,000 kids never came back….:shrug: don’t think any of my kids teachers are over 50 so what was the issue? I’d say anyone under 50 to keep the woke folk happy should have just been able to crack on and keep everything flowing. With the amount of oldies and lefties on here, your in for a rough ride with this thread…..:hehe:

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I don't think it should have been quite as simple as shut everything but it certainly also isn't as simple as taking your own age as a predictor of whether you should carry on as normal. I lived with my parents at the time, my mum had pneumonia about 5 years before that and my dad was 75. If work had said, you are young enough to carry on going into the office and therefore you must, I would have quit.

Once you strip everyone out who probably shouldn't risk it, you likely don't have a functioning system and you can make a better case for shutting it down.

And I think it's worth saying that I remember pretty clearly the conversations going on on here as COVID was initially sweeping across Europe and some of the people on here who are now claiming some sort of intellectual victory around COVID got it completely and utterly wrong at the start and have since moved the goalposts to make themselves feel smart.

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Originally Posted by Eric Cartman

I don't think it should have been quite as simple as shut everything but it certainly also isn't as simple as taking your own age as a predictor of whether you should carry on as normal. I lived with my parents at the time, my mum had pneumonia about 5 years before that and my dad was 75. If work had said, you are young enough to carry on going into the office and therefore you must, I would have quit.

Once you strip everyone out who probably shouldn't risk it, you likely don't have a functioning system and you can make a better case for shutting it down.

And I think it's worth saying that I remember pretty clearly the conversations going on on here as COVID was initially sweeping across Europe and some of the people on here who are now claiming some sort of intellectual victory around COVID got it completely and utterly wrong at the start and have since moved the goalposts to make themselves feel smart.

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Arthur Schopenhauer once said, “All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; and third, it is accepted as self-evident. That’s where this board is an outlier which is why it’s dying on its proverbial.

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Originally Posted by Eric Cartman

I don't think it should have been quite as simple as shut everything but it certainly also isn't as simple as taking your own age as a predictor of whether you should carry on as normal. I lived with my parents at the time, my mum had pneumonia about 5 years before that and my dad was 75. If work had said, you are young enough to carry on going into the office and therefore you must, I would have quit.

Once you strip everyone out who probably shouldn't risk it, you likely don't have a functioning system and you can make a better case for shutting it down.

And I think it's worth saying that I remember pretty clearly the conversations going on on here as COVID was initially sweeping across Europe and some of the people on here who are now claiming some sort of intellectual victory around COVID got it completely and utterly wrong at the start and have since moved the goalposts to make themselves feel smart.

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Really fair post this is I think. It went on too long, and everyone was in different circumstances.

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Originally Posted by TWGL1

Arthur Schopenhauer once said, “All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; and third, it is accepted as self-evident. That’s where this board is an outlier which is why it’s dying on its proverbial.

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That's pretty clearly a load of bollocks, loads of things that are true are accepted instantly because the evidence is overwhelming.

I think if you are flipping this the other way around and living in denial that every time somebody ridicules you, you must be right, then you are in for a shock.

I don't think this board is an outlier at all, if you think wider society now views COVID as nothing and lockdowns as a complete undeniable overreaction, then you are definitely existing in an echo chamber.

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Originally Posted by JamesWales

Really fair post this is I think. It went on too long, and everyone was in different circumstances.

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I think we locked down too late initially and that led to an overcompensation down the line. It is mad to think we used to have daily press conferences and these sort of performative cosplay appearances which I guess we're supposed to create confidence i.e. I'm the chief nurse, so I am wearing a nurses outfit.

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Originally Posted by TWGL1

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...-inquiry-live/

Prof Whitty admitted that in telling the public to stay at home, officials did not make clear that the health service was “open”.

People’s reluctance to come forward as a result led to fewer patients attending A&E, calling 999, and a backlog of medical appointments on which ministers are still struggling to get a grip.

He also criticised “confusion” around face masks and admitted that he may not recommend shielding for the vulnerable again after they suffered “significant harm”.

Of course, we now know that the establishment "pandemic decision makers" partied throughout the lockdowns.

This is because Covid had a 99%+ survival rate, with an average age of death at 83 (with four comorbidities).

Adults only need to reply to this thread

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A ****ing Telegraph article. Next please.

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Originally Posted by Eric Cartman

I think we locked down too late initially and that led to an overcompensation down the line. It is mad to think we used to have daily press conferences and these sort of performative cosplay appearances which I guess we're supposed to create confidence i.e. I'm the chief nurse, so I am wearing a nurses outfit.

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Milgram experiment, 65% will comply with authority even when it's a load of made up bollocks. Governments know this, scientists know this, and even some normal people know this.

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Originally Posted by JamesWales

The single most damaging event to our society for decades. First lockdown can be excused to an extent. The rest have caused far more problems than they solved.

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Nope, that was Brexshit.

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Originally Posted by az city

Nope, that was Brexshit.

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😂👍

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Originally Posted by TWGL1

Arthur Schopenhauer once said, “All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; and third, it is accepted as self-evident. That’s where this board is an outlier which is why it’s dying on its proverbial.

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How do we know if you were ridiculed back in 2020 when the poster called TWGL1 didn’t exist until August 2021?

It’s worth noting as well that one of those giving it the I told you so, disappeared off this Board for around a year around 2020/21.

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Originally Posted by the other bob wilson

How do we know if you were ridiculed back in 2020 when the poster called TWGL1 didn’t exist until August 2021?

It’s worth noting as well that one of those giving it the I told you so, disappeared off this Board for around a year around 2020/21.

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I’ve no idea of the nuances of a posters activity of nearly 4 years ago and if you do that’s more accurate representation of how you spend your time. How you spend you time is up to you of course.

If you think I’m going to come on here just to say “ I told you so “ then you are sadly mistaken . The government spent billions on behavioural research etc to convince the public to “follow the science “ and it’s understandable why most people did. The fact is many people didn’t( and it was a hard choice at the time )when you think of the amount of abuse and harassment they encountered.

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Originally Posted by TWGL1

I’ve no idea of the nuances of a posters activity of nearly 4 years ago and if you do that’s more accurate representation of how you spend your time. How you spend you time is up to you of course.

If you think I’m going to come on here just to say “ I told you so “ then you are sadly mistaken . The government spent billions on behavioural research etc to convince the public to “follow the science “ and it’s understandable why most people did. The fact is many people didn’t and it was a hard choice at the time.

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For someone who has almost reached the stage where you don't poist about anything else but Covid, it doesn't half come across as I told you so at times and, of course, the thing is with your posting history, no one can tell for sure whether you did tell us so or not.

We've had the guy who went missing during so much of the 20/21 period claiming another great triumph for the "critical thinkers" in this thread. However, I would have thought that the vast majority of us thickos who felt differently at the time would have said back in 2020 if they'd been asked what do you think will be said by the Chief Medical Officer when.he is interviewed by a public enquiry into the pandemic in 2024, it would be that mistakes were made and he took some decisions back then, that he wouldn't have done given what he knows now.

That's more or less what Chris Whitty is saying, to think that he and people like him would have come through the greatest medical crisis the world had faced in a century without a feeling that mistakes had been made and there were things we needed to learn from is completely unrealistic and yet we now have someone who was showing his "critical thinking" capabilities by indulging in all sorts of wild theories about Covid in the early part of 2020 claiming he told us so before he did a runner for a year :hehe:

But it was just his opinion I presume but he was probably hounded off the board by people like you.

Anyway it’s the weekend so enjoy!

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Originally Posted by TWGL1

Arthur Schopenhauer once said, “All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; and third, it is accepted as self-evident. That’s where this board is an outlier which is why it’s dying on its proverbial.

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What is freaky, is that Schopenhauer first posted that on an obscure football message board….along with some of his theories on the physics of football wing play.

I’ve just remembered the paper. It wasn't about the physics it was ‘The Philosophical Pessimism of the Inverted Winger in a 4-4-2 System’

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Originally Posted by JamesWales

The single most damaging event to our society for decades. First lockdown can be excused to an extent. The rest have caused far more problems than they solved.

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I think that part of the problem and in countries at either end of the political spectrum (e.g. the USA and China) and everywhere inbetween was knowing that even though deaths would be weighted amongst the old and vulnerable the piling up of corpses would have resulted in chaos if Covid were permitted to let rip.

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Originally Posted by Taunton Blue Genie

I think that part of the problem and in countries at either end of the political spectrum (e.g. the USA and China) and everywhere inbetween was knowing that even though deaths would be weighted amongst the old and vulnerable the piling up of corpses would have resulted in chaos if Covid were permitted to let rip.

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Yeah exactly. My experience of critical care in the NHS is overwhelmingly positive despite the problems elsewhere in the service. Logic would suggest though that there is a tipping point at which the NHS would have essentially have to decide to write people off, '80 years old? You are in the carpark waiting to die so that we can treat people with a higher chance of survival'. My memory is a bit fuzzy, we may have reached that during the initial outbreak anyway. But the principle remains, the more you let the virus spread, the more people get ill enough to go to hospital, the lower that threshold for prioritisation falls. Not by any stretch an expert on the NHS but when my mum fell severely ill with pneumonia and sepsis, it looked like there were maybe 20 beds in critical care at our nearest hospital serving potentially hundreds of thousands of people.

It would be interesting to know how many people entered critical care and survived, because my thinking is that once that side of the NHS fails/falls, we would have been losing a significant amount of people who would otherwise (with proper care) have survived.

This discussion reminds me of a lot of situations. You take mitigating actions to avert disaster and then when they work and a complete disaster is averted, people cry 'see, nothing happened, what a waste of energy'.

It's also worth saying that next time people are tempted to throw around the usual 'party political' accusation, people should remember this thread and other threads around COVID. The majority of people on this board who I would consider to be non-conservative voters, supported the governments actions and we're quite happy to say so (even if there were criticisms of specific elements of their approach).

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Originally Posted by the other bob wilson

It’s worth noting as well that one of those giving it the I told you so, disappeared off this Board for around a year around 2020/21.

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Maybe they just went off to live their best life, while also avoiding the 65% who are susceptible to totalitarian propaganda campaigns? BTW, I hoped they lived to tell their tale after openly flirting with their own self-extinction.

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Originally Posted by Taunton Blue Genie

I think that part of the problem and in countries at either end of the political spectrum (e.g. the USA and China) and everywhere inbetween was knowing that even though deaths would be weighted amongst the old and vulnerable the piling up of corpses would have resulted in chaos if Covid were permitted to let rip.

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You think China and the USA are the extremes? Not North Korea, Turkey, Russia ...?

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Originally Posted by az city

You think China and the USA are the extremes? Not North Korea, Turkey, Russia ...?

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We tended to hear more about the US and China but I think most people would have got the gist of my post whatever.

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Originally Posted by Wales-Bales

Maybe they just went off to live their best life, while also avoiding the 65% who are susceptible to totalitarian propaganda campaigns? BTW, I hoped they lived to tell their tale after openly flirting with their own self-extinction.

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The government had access to the data from the Diamond Princess, the US aircraft carrier, and the Italian village of Po, long before it became an issue here.

Whitty knew that it was an irrelevance, it didn't affect large number of people, and of those it did affect, few if any were seriously harmed, unless you had 4 or more co-morbidities.