[jfman]

Originally Posted by nomadking

I did watch it. I saw all the people wearing face masks as I said. I also referred to the person travelling to Japan via South Korea that was intercepted that was in that programme. They only had in the main, ONE point of introduction, IE China. By the time it arrived in the UK, it was coming in from just about everywhere, China, Germany, Italy, Austria etc. That meant MORE places around the UK where it was introduced and spread.

One that they caught was referenced in the programme. There have been others (else surely the virus wouldn’t be present at all?). What they’ve shown is how to target individual infections and break chains of transmission.

This applies whether in villages, towns, cities, at train stations, in airports.

They have a well oiled machine designed to find and stamp out the virus.

We’ve scientific advisers that says it’s too hard and shrug their shoulders. It’s a bad flu, after all.

In general, in countries like Japan and South Korea, the people readily wear face masks. That can be seen EACH year with a "standard" flu outbreak.

And the Government here advised against.

As the programme said, The UK DID have contact tracing.

And abandoned it because without airport screening and large scale testing it’s pissing in the wind. All because we took the decision it wasn’t worth identifying individual cases to stamp out the outbreak.

That was a political choice along with “herd immunity week“.

The UK response was based upon previous flu outbreaks which had been less serious. Even South Korea was caught out by their more serious MERS outbreak in 2015. That influenced their future planning. That also meant their society was more amenable to the level of contact tracing required. Which of their measures is accepted in the UK? Facial recognition on CCTV? No. Checking of credit card data? No. Checking of mobile phones? No. Publishing limited details of infected people? Not a chance.

The word you are looking for is flawed, Nomadking. The response was flawed.

What measures the UK public would tolerate would vary depending on what options you were giving them - framed against a choice of lockdowns and the economy tanking very quickly people would be amenable to some of the measures in South Korea.

If the MERS outbreak hadn't happened there previously, then even South Korea wouldn't have been prepared for COVID-19.

Finally, a sensible point. Yes, South Korea are world leaders in this field based on experience. Not guesswork.

In the UK hand sanitisers wouldn't last long inside a lift. People have ripped them off the walls in hospitals.

The South Koreans abandoned contact tracing in the city of Daegu because the numbers involved were too large. The response of the people of the city(2.5m of them, think Birmingham) was to VOLUNTARILY stay at home. Yet at a hospital 100 out of 102 caught the virus. Not exactly a success story.

Back to your selective use of evidence once more. Look at the headline infection and death rates in South Korea and less severe economic impact.

You are putting up the straw man that if South Korea have ANY INFECTIONS AT ALL that is failure.

Any impartial observer, not desperate to defend our response at any cost would happily swap it for the 99.99% of times South Korea get it right.

The overwhelming reason for the differences is the morons in this country, especially in the media. The outbreak in Daegu was largely down to a moron who initially refused to be tested.

No individual can beat the pandemic. People get infected in workplaces, in cars, at home and on public transport.

This requires state infrastructure in place to test, trace and isolate. Again you are simply trying to absolve the Government of blame.

While those on benefits can sit at home with their feed up in a global pandemic the workforce needs the state to make going to work and carrying out relatively normal activities to be made as safe as possible. That requires test, trace and isolate.