Chris O'Connor
Player Valuation: £35m
Huge errors were made on all sides as ministers were left floundering by only really being prepared for a flu like pandemic (which tbf was always by far (and I mean a long way for countries in Western Europe) the most probable) by the time China had it and eventually deemed it prudent to let the world know how contagious it might be, (even then not releasing the true extent), the funds had been allocated and the reaction far too slow.
Public health organisations such as public health England are invariably notoriously slow to react to changing circumstances, have finite funds and would probably have spent all targeting the most likely problem, a new and deadly strain of flu. They grind towards change and on the whole won't have the most dynamic management, but the preparation for attack from another quarter, despite WHO reports, won't have been easily coped with even with far greater prior notice. It's the far greater R rate with Covid that meant all their preparations (for flu) were absolutely useless in coping with a Coronavirus.
Without preparations in place and so much uncertainty from scientists towards how a new virus, albeit a Coronavirus, in the same grouping as MERS and SARS, might react to a highly populated country, and how quickly it might spread, any notion of the NHS being overwhelmed and some, would have to have brought a massive reaction, even if as it turned out, it was a massive worst case scenario, and then some, from Professor Ferguson that triggered it. it wouldn't have been easy to make correct decisions and without the industrial and chemical base of Germany, impossible to follow the best example in Western Europe and achieve similar results. They would have been far better had they gone full on earlier, and absolutely made the right decision, but far, far worse than Germany too, even then. Inherent major disadvantages like a very densely populated country would also work massively against us.
With so much confusion and lack of preparation it's not surprising dreadful errors were made by people trying to cope with something they had no preparation for, no materials or capacity to be able to cope with, and without the crucial benefit of hindsight advising them exactly which option would work and which was useless or far too ambitious.
Judging with the truth of hindsight always highlights the worst errors and makes them chasms, while less serious errors become massive and tiny ones huge.
With the rate falling now it has to be right to open up the economy, there are still real errors to my mind being made in that it's not fast enough, sports gyms and some outdoor sports should have been given the go ahead, why huge indoor gyms can't cope like department stores or cricket like golf can't continue, each bowler could use his own ball at junior level with fielders having hand gel, is ridiculous - but perhaps more importantly there are many more businesses that could open too.
They can never have another universal shutdown, this achieved it's purpose but it can be seen as a sledgehammer response that causes untold long-term damage, no wonder with the information available at the time, it was with perhaps too much reluctance they eventually brought the shutters down. A few weeks earlier and we now know the likely difference, I'm not so sure everyone did then.
Public health organisations such as public health England are invariably notoriously slow to react to changing circumstances, have finite funds and would probably have spent all targeting the most likely problem, a new and deadly strain of flu. They grind towards change and on the whole won't have the most dynamic management, but the preparation for attack from another quarter, despite WHO reports, won't have been easily coped with even with far greater prior notice. It's the far greater R rate with Covid that meant all their preparations (for flu) were absolutely useless in coping with a Coronavirus.
Without preparations in place and so much uncertainty from scientists towards how a new virus, albeit a Coronavirus, in the same grouping as MERS and SARS, might react to a highly populated country, and how quickly it might spread, any notion of the NHS being overwhelmed and some, would have to have brought a massive reaction, even if as it turned out, it was a massive worst case scenario, and then some, from Professor Ferguson that triggered it. it wouldn't have been easy to make correct decisions and without the industrial and chemical base of Germany, impossible to follow the best example in Western Europe and achieve similar results. They would have been far better had they gone full on earlier, and absolutely made the right decision, but far, far worse than Germany too, even then. Inherent major disadvantages like a very densely populated country would also work massively against us.
With so much confusion and lack of preparation it's not surprising dreadful errors were made by people trying to cope with something they had no preparation for, no materials or capacity to be able to cope with, and without the crucial benefit of hindsight advising them exactly which option would work and which was useless or far too ambitious.
Judging with the truth of hindsight always highlights the worst errors and makes them chasms, while less serious errors become massive and tiny ones huge.
With the rate falling now it has to be right to open up the economy, there are still real errors to my mind being made in that it's not fast enough, sports gyms and some outdoor sports should have been given the go ahead, why huge indoor gyms can't cope like department stores or cricket like golf can't continue, each bowler could use his own ball at junior level with fielders having hand gel, is ridiculous - but perhaps more importantly there are many more businesses that could open too.
They can never have another universal shutdown, this achieved it's purpose but it can be seen as a sledgehammer response that causes untold long-term damage, no wonder with the information available at the time, it was with perhaps too much reluctance they eventually brought the shutters down. A few weeks earlier and we now know the likely difference, I'm not so sure everyone did then.
