UK government advised to have lockdown two weeks before announcement made

It would be another 10 days before he placed the country into lockdown. But we have seen a report from a top scientist from 9 March, warning that the UK's then "mitigation" approach could lead to 1.7 million deaths.
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[MaximilienRobespierre]

I live in Italy and I was looking on in horror when I saw football games, horse racing and concerts still taking place in the UK while we were already in lockdown.

[paulafreckleton]

The sad thing is they still don't have a clue!!

[MelanieMacDonalDMELSPLAYLISTS]

WHY ON EARTH DID THEY EVEN STOP CONTACT TRACING ANYWAY ...

[roselw]

Naive government, didn't know and prepare for herd immunity or lockdown law after changing their game plan, poor front line workers lost their lives becaus eof such incompetent government.

[santelder]

I could see it coming and locked myself down very first few days in March, about 4th March .Govt was badly advised to wait and see, like herd immunity way .

[Carjack_Felon]

The professor Neil Ferguson said that the infection rate was doubling every 3 to 4 days. That means 3.5 days earlier would have cut deaths by half. A full week earlier would've cut deaths by 3 quarters! That's more than 30, 000 lives from the official estimate of 40, 000+ which is an under count of the actual total around 60, 000+, so in reality one week sooner could have saved 45, 000 lives! 2 weeks earlier and the death count would have been 16 times lower (saving 55, 000+ lives)! Incompetent, useless, uncaring, idiotic government.

[StraightcheD]

This government has an infinite supply of blunders.

[CecilyPigeon]

The point she makes at 10:00 is what is so incredibly frustrating. They know now (and probably knew then) that they should react as the successful countries have and yet are continually not doing so. I remember it being reported in late Feb that they'd already decided to stop testing when the number of confirmed cases reached 100. 100! Imagine what a different situation we'd be in right now if instead, every effort had been thrown in at that point to track, trace and isolate. Complete failure to step up.

[stephaniewhite]

If 2 weeks earlier would have saved half the lives (20, 000) imagine what 2 months earlier could have done. All the top You Tube Epidemiologists (Medicram, John Campbell, Peak Prosperity) were crying out for lockdowns in January -unlike the Govts invisible "the science" scapegoat these are real visible leading science people & best in their field - all who were ignored despite hundreds of thousands of combined subscribers.

[emm_arr]

Each week just adds to the case for misconduct in public office charges.

[simonjames]

We will not vote for you again, we will see you gone,

What’s the point in discussing the past which you can’t change? You’d better focus on what’s coming next instead. This is like watching old news.

[norahassan]

What about flights and how will we sit in the planes with the social distancing???

[f.m.]

Late January my friend from Hong Kong was traveling in Barcelona when they just cancelled the Mobile World Exhibition. There were a few cases reported in Spain. I asked him if he was going to see FC Barcelona that evening. He didn't. Two days later he visited his son in Cambridge. So I told him he could still go watch Liverpool Atletico Madrid. Again he didn't. Well, all this time we were under strict lock downs in China and was amazed at how European countries were not responding to strict measures for the virus. And of course the US looked worse for that matter. The government instructions in China were so clear that we understood we all need to stop the virus altogether by social distancing. During that month of February I have not seen one person not wearing a mask. I supposed the whole 1.4 billion people were doing the same. And China did nailed it down to near zero cases after 50 days or so.

[gda]

some of uk govt [eg gove, duncan, dragging people to work Because ---money Before health

[davebellamy]

Anyone got a link to the early March report? Is it public? It should be!!

[hauskalainen]

When the civil service told Johnson that Brexit had to be a priority he was asked which things that the civil service should stop doing, planning for threats such as pandemic disease was what he ordered to be dropped. Back in 2019 I believe.

[JaMEFMEB]

It ain't muddled thinking. It's very clear thinking on wanting herd immunity without the blame for all the deaths required.
Why are all these people being so polite? The tories stated they wanted herd immunity and are patently doing exactly what's required (whilst absolving themselves with PURPOSEFUL ambiguity).

[baldeepbirak]

So will children be studying during school holidays?

[GonzoTehGreat]

The focus of this video title and news story is wrong. Riley's report is an irrelevant strawman created by C4.

Instead, the relevant metrics which the government should've been using to decide when to lockdown were:
(1) the statistics from other, earlier infected countries
(2) the date of the first confirmed UK case
and
(3) the rate at which the number of new cases was increasing (which is one measure of the rate of infection)

NOT a report by an individual scientist predicting X number of deaths!