Actually, I thought that was pretty concise and understandable compared to what Trump often comes out with.
I never realised Aussies hated us so much. You live and learn.
You forgot to copy and paste the end of the article …
Let’s spare a thought for the thousands of people who will die in the weeks ahead, and for their families who will suffer so deeply during a festive season full of misery and grief.
Thanks for Australias pre-dated condolences.
I didn’t see it as a hateful article just an analysis of the current situation and the appalling way the Clown Prince is handling it. Britain has the worst Covid record in Europe but criticizing a leader is not hating a country.
I only copy and paste a bit of an article to give the gist of it and always include the source so you can read it yourself.
There was a report on yesterday’s news that it is estimated by British scientists that the death count will peak at Christmas.
Infections are increasing because some people are completely ignoring the rules. Nobody is enforcing them. They have parties and sleepovers, congregate in places with no social distance and nobody can stop them. If people wear masks under their nose or pull it down to talk to people then what’s the point?
The main benefit in delaying the virus is that in time we will a) hopefully have a vaccine that reduces the spread, b) have an effective treatment that prevents deaths, c) understand better why some people are more prone and take appropriate action.
I don’t think any world leader is doing a good or bad job to contain this. They are all being criticised to some extent at home. (well maybe not NZ, they are special…). It has to be the toughest situation for any leader to try to cope with. Worse than a war, at least with that you know the enemy and can form a strategy.
It’s more what has gone on before that has made things more tricky in the UK. We’ve had several years of political turmoil and three leaders grappling with the unmentionable. Everything else was neglected in that time.
The ignorant at that time (including myself) laughed out loud at what was considered a Delphic statement but:
The idea of unknown unknowns was created in 1955 by two American psychologists, Joseph Luft (1916–2014) and Harrington Ingham (1916–1995) in their development of the Johari window. They used it as a technique to help people better understand their relationship with themselves as well as others.
The term was also commonly used inside NASA. Rumsfeld himself cited NASA administrator William Graham in his memoir; he wrote that he had first heard “a variant of the phrase” from Graham when they served together on the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States during the late-1990s. Kirk Borne, an astrophysicist who was employed as a data scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center at the time, noted in an April 2013 TED talk that he had used the phrase “unknown unknowns” in a talk to personnel at the Homeland Security Transition Planning Office a few days prior to Rumsfeld’s remarks, and speculated that the term may have percolated up to Rumsfeld and other high-ranking officials in the defense department.
The terms “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns” are now often used in project management and strategic planning circles.
Hence, I ignore any hypothetical questions regarding, say, my plan to beat COVID-19, since, from my viewpoint, there are far too many “unknown unknowns” - like Dirty Harry said “A man’s gotta know his limitations” … 
I am not sure about this because our PM, Scotty from Marketing, was rightly and roundly condemned for his inept handling of the Bushfire emergency at the beginning of the year however he has coped with the Pandemic pretty well economically with the help of the national cabinet.
There is no pleasing everyone of course but the recent Queensland election results demonstrate how the Queensland Premier was seen to have handled the pandemic well (a 5% swing to an incumbent Labor government) and I don’t think there has been any major criticism of any state Premier except Victoria’s and even he was seen to deal with the second wave effectively.
You have to remember too that State Premiers have a lot of power compared to other regional leaders (ie people like Nicola Sturgeon) in the UK where all the power is centralised. It is state premiers who shut the borders, directed the health services, dealt with hotel quarantine and lockdowns.
The only squabbling has been between state Premiers over border closures.
New Zealand, as you say, is the gold standard.
On the other hand the UK government seems to have been ineffective, incompetent and with no clear direction right from the very beginning of this crisis. This has continued to the present day.
It might be a failure of the UK press that this is not clear locally but from afar it is like the farce of Brexit all over again except that this time it is an unfolding tragedy of people’s health and welfare. Three years of Brexit could be treated like an ongoing joke but a pandemic cannot.
The statistics tell the tale. None of us are out of the woods yet.
Great Barrington Declaration
The Great Barrington Declaration – As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection.
Coming from both the left and right, and around the world, we have devoted our careers to protecting people. Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health – leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice.
Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.
Last updated on Monday 2 November 2020 at 4:00pm
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Total recorded cases OVER 1,000,000 … and rising … :!:
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Cases at a terrifying high*, deaths rising fast, hospitalisations increasing fast, test capacity increased to 520,000 but processing only 51% … 
Boris Johnson, in a statement to the Commons lasting almost two and a half hours, repeatedly stressed that the lockdown legislation would only apply until 2 December and that MPs would have to vote on what happened next. He claimed that mass testing would be the route to a more normal future. In his opening statement he said:
We now have not only much better medication and the prospect of a vaccine the immediate prospect of many millions of cheap, reliable and rapid turnaround tests – with a result in minutes.
These tests, crucially, identify people who are infectious but do not have symptoms, allowing them immediately to self-isolate and stop the spread of the disease,and allowing those who are not infectious to continue as normal.
And so over the next few days and weeks, we plan a steady but massive expansion in the deployment of these quick turnaround tests which we will be manufacturing in this country applying them in an ever-growing number of situations, from helping women to have their partners with them in labour wards when they’re giving birth, to testing whole towns and even cities.
Is this still the £100,000,000,000.00 “Moonshot”* … :?: … :roll:
21 September 2020
Documents on the Moonshot programme prepared by consultants Boston Consulting Group for the Government, suggested it could carry out 2 to 4 million daily tests by December, followed by a more ambitious rollout of “up to 10 million” tests per day from January. The papers were obtained by the British Medical Journal, who also reported separate briefing notes for senior Scottish ministers and officials suggesting that the UK programme could cost £100 billion a year, close to the entire NHS budget of around £130 billion.
Another report, this time with online news platform openDemocracy, meanwhile suggested that alongside G4S, Serco, Boots, Sainsbury’s, AstraZeneca, GSK and Smith and Nephew, Big Four firm Deloitte had also been paid by the Government for helping design Project Moonshot. One senior informed openDemocracy that Deloitte – which also had a role in the Government’s earlier attempts to ramp up testing – was being given the contract to deliver more than half of the work, which they also described as “crazy,” having “double-checked the figures" Moonshot was aiming for.
In August, it emerged the industry had received contracts worth £56 million to help with the national response to the coronavirus. Deloitte, Cambridge Consultants and PwC took the three largest fees, pocketing some £23 million between them. It is not surprising then that the news of private consultancies once again being handed public funds to implement the Government’s response to Covid-19 has drawn criticism from opposition figures.
Labour MP Clive Lewis dubbed the deal as “potentially the biggest NHS privatisation in history.” Questioning why the work could not be given to the NHS to do in-house, Lewis added, “It’s too easy to get the impression that this Government will hand out contracts to whoever happens to be mates with the right minister.”
I await the details … 
As long as some folks don’t give a shite for better or worst, de ja vous will prevail.
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- IIRC, the last time there were technical difficulties, over 15,000 “extra” positive cases were found … :!:
Last updated on Monday 2 November 2020 at 4:00pm
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Covid: Deaths 10% higher than normal as virus deaths rise
There were 12,292 deaths in the week ending 23 October - 1,100 where Covid was mentioned on the death certificate, national statisticians reported.
It brings the total number of deaths that have been registered this year and linked to Covid to over 60,000.
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Cases at a terrifying high*, deaths rising fast, hospitalisations increasing fast, test capacity increased to 520,000 but processing only an APPALLING 39% …
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Last updated on Wednesday 4 November 2020 at 4:00pm
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Cases at a terrifying high, deaths rising fast, hospitalisations increasing fast (now including ventilator beds, up from 80 on 1/9 to 1,000 on 31/10), test capacity increased to 520,000+ but processing only a DREADFUL 50% …
Covid: MPs vote to back four-week England lockdown
MPs have backed a four-week lockdown in England to combat coronavirus, which will kick in at midnight.
Boris Johnson saw off a rebellion by 34 Tory MPs opposed to the move, with the support of Labour.
The government won the vote by 516 to 39, a majority of 477.
The prime minister told MPs a second lockdown was needed to “contain the surge” in Covid cases - but rebels warned it would wreck businesses and lives.
The Tory rebels included former leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith and Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential 1922 committee of backbenchers. Former Prime Minister Theresa May abstained.
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Last updated on Wednesday 4 November 2020 at 4:00pm
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Cases at a terrifying high, deaths rising fast, hospitalisations increasing fast (now including ventilator beds, up from 80 on 1/9 to 1,000 on 31/10), test capacity increased to 520,000+ but processing only a DREADFUL 50% …
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Cases at a terrifying high, deaths rising fast, hospitalisations rising fast, tests well below current capacity of 528,245 …
Second Lockdown Has Begun
Boris Johnson said he knew people were weary but four weeks of measures would make a “real impact” on the virus.
Speaking at a press conference in Downing Street, Mr Johnson said the measures were “not a repeat of the spring” and there was “light at the end of the tunnel”.
He said the restrictions in England would “automatically expire” on 2 December. There is expected to be another vote on the next steps needed to tackle the virus before the lockdown ends.
He added that although the challenge was “significant across the UK”, the devolved nations were working together on a “joint approach”, with the objective of having “as normal a Christmas as possible”.
The devolved nations each make their own restrictions with Wales currently in a 17-day firebreak lockdown, while Scotland is in a tier system and Northern Ireland in the midst of a four-week limited lockdown.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating … 
Hi
I am old and vulnerable.
I have no problem with staying in and letting the younger fit ones get on with life.
It would be much cheaper to let life continue and pay those vulnerable £500 a week to stay in and get their shopping delivered.