Originally Posted by
Plastic787
OK fine. Would you have been happier if I’d written in the process of opening borders right now? Seeing as that’s clearly what I meant I stand by the comment about pedantry. Strawman tactics at their best, bravo.
The fact remains that, despite hysterical assertions on this forum that the U.K. is the hotbed of Covid-19 in Europe, in actual fact Spain has the highest numbers of deaths per capita and is proposing opening borders imminently. Address that please rather than attacking the straw man.
The total death figure, while terribly sad, in not relevant to decisions being taken currently. The daily death rates could be and for that, yes, Spain is running at a lower, significantly lower rate per capita than the UK, has been for a while. If you then chose to say that deaths are a lagging indicator, which we would all agree with, then perhaps look at daily infection detection. Here, too, the UK is running at a significantly higher number, per capita, than Spain.
On the basis of CURRENT figures the statement that the UK is the worst affected in Europe stands up.
And yet we are walking slowly away from lockdown. All, even the Foreign Secretary this morning, agree that this is a very delicate moment and many of the scientists who have been involved in the decision making process have described the steps taken as risky. Clearly we rightly delegate these decisions to our politicians - it is their job. Nor am i pretending that it is wrong to take public health decisions separately from economic ones - they have to be linked in some way. I hope this gamble pays off. But it IS a gamble presently