..regarding handling of the Cornavirus, IMO this BB has been full of examples of 'Hindsight bias'... ...also known as the knew-it-all-along phenomenon or creeping determinism, which refers to the common tendency for people to perceive events that have already occurred as having been more predictable than they actually were before the events took place. As a result, people often believe, after an event has occurred, that they would have predicted, or perhaps even would have known with a high degree of certainty, what the outcome of the event would have been, before the event occurred. Hindsight bias may cause distortions of our memories of what we knew and/or believed before an event occurred, and is a significant source of overconfidence regarding our ability to predict the outcomes of future events If we look other countries the UK has fared far better than others in some areas where they have been heavily criticised, for example care home deaths. In truth, the UK is not even close to being the worst. Whilst the Guardian International edition led with an article highlighting that Hong Kong has had NO care home deaths using it as a stick to beat the UK Govt (no surprises there!) it fails to mention the fact that the UK has, according to a European report recently published, the LOWEST Care home death rate in Europe. Whilst that is nothing to be proud of, too many people seem to be biased by their own political views and believe the UK Govt are alone in having mismanaged every aspect of the pandemic. However, using statistics (like I have just done) in a situation as complex as a Global pandemic to compare different Govt strategies is extremely dubious given all the different methods being used to extrapolate the true state of affairs from all the data.
This thread seems like an attempt to defend the Government while at the same time pointing out that the Government is not worth defending....
Locked down two weeks too late and didn't use any border controls. This whole lock down has been p1ssing in the wind as a result.
I was due to go to a concert at the First Direct Arena in Leeds, 11 days before lockdown. By all accounts a large proportion of the sell out crowd didn't turn up. We chose not to go. Was pretty clear to me and a lot of people then that we shouldn't be holding things like this. Not sure why you have created a thread to have a crack at other posters, to be honest.
Yep. And advising people not to go to pubs is like advising people not to breathe. Hindsight my arse.
And now we are going to start quarantining people arriving from countries with far better Coronavirus control than we have To Blatantly nick of twitter - its the Eric Morcambe approach to policy Taking all the right steps but not necessarily in the right order And to go back to the OP - yes there is some hindsight but many were calling for a lockdown well before the government implemented it loads said abandoning track and trace was stupid - at the time controlling arrivals before it took hold was obvious at the time -The government got some things right but its wrong to ignore the obvious errors made There are many countries handled the coronavirus better than us - only a handful have done worse
Because I get tired of seeing the constant anti-Govt rhetoric (and I suspect whatever party was in power it would be no different) from people on here, who, if suddenly given the power to make decisions would not have a clue what to do (and I include myself in that category). As in many things in life, it is easy to criticise when you don't have to make tough decisions. Living outside the UK and South Yorkshire 'bubble' I have, more and more begun to recognise that the moniker 'Whinging Pom' is, indeed, an accurate description of the UK psyche. So, tell me, you genuinely don't recognise hindsight bias in any of the thousands of posts on this BB since the Pandemic started?
The ex Danish minister alluded to this on QT last night. Basically she said Whilst acknowledging we have to move forward etc, the mistakes, oversights, incompetence ( my word not hers) should not be dismissed, glossed over, forgotten. There was plenty this Govt got wrong, but they still continue throw out the rhetoric with the usual inaction and or plans that have have not even first been discussed with the relevant bodies. Schools for example.
I can't disagree with much that you've written....what I would just say though is in regards to "many were calling for a lockdown well before the government implemented it"....whilst that is true, and I count myself among that group...many weren't, in fact this board polled 50:50 on the school closure issue, I wonder how many who are now critical , fitted into to the 50% who voted to keep schools open at the time.
Obviously there is some, but that doesn't mean you can make sweeping generalisations. Your question can be turned round - are you saying there isn't any legitimate criticism from people who saw the issues ahead of time?
You are/were implicitly doing so yet tried to obscure the fact with the title of your post. By claiming that many people on here are politically motivated in attacking the Government and dismissing a report from the Guardian which highlighted the Government's failure on care homes relative to Korea you ARE implicitly defending the Government. Please re-read your own post. Regards.
Or perhaps, we recognise the foreigner that thinks they know things about us that they don’t. So because you whinge from afar ( about any subject) your different from other wingers yeah? Also, what a stupid thing to say about people not having a clue what to do if given power. We probably wouldn’t lie and try do what’s best for everyone for a start. We wouldn’t have been party to the info this Govt had prior to months before lockdown. We wouldn’t’t have been depriving the the NHS of resources for many a year prior to this and looking to sell- off as much as we could to ‘our friends’ We would’ve acted upon the shortcomings of the operation Cygnus findings. Also, Heeded the warnings and pleas from Italy and other Countries to shut down earlier. We would’ve had a track and trace system to prevent a possible 2nd wave. But what do we know eh?
My main concern is due to government action I'm more at risk now 9 weeks in than I was during the peak. The measures implemented have brought more variables into my equation. At the beginning there was a herd immunity among people using public transport. The same people were using the same bus and train, sitting in the same place. You kept your distance but counted the weeks down thinking that person was less likely to have it. Now I'm seeing more and more different people. This increases my likelihood of contracting the virus. I'm now wearing a mask when before I never saw the need. Buses are limiting the number of people to 10 on single decker and 20 on double deckers. This to me is after the horse has bolted. However, I support the measure. As I mentioned in my earlier post everything has happened too late and then things that shouldn't have been relaxed have been too early.
Where can I buy my whinging pom t-shirt? I'll wear it with pride and anger. I along with many others on this site saw this coming. James O'Brien the radio host on LBC predicted the government response in 10 points weeks ago. But I'll keep on moaning, being a whinging pom upset at the fact thousands may have survived if our government had actually took and reacted. Let's not forget that once again the government been caught lying again about testing numbers. How many lies now? Or should we just close our eyes to it?
I can't help but feel that, for those saying we locked down too late, had we have done so earlier the British public wouldn't have obeyed it initially anyway - people would certainly have been questioning why we were doing something without any evidence. For example on March 13th, we hadn't had any known COVID-19 deaths at all. I agree with OP. Looking back on things with the benefit of hindsight is so very easy to do..
I think the main point I take from this thread is a lot of people including myself saw this coming. That's not hindsight. That's pointing out how inept the government has handled things.