London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

Re:London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain by TheOtherHobbes on Saturday December 19, 2020 @06:30PM (#25482309)

Some countries have done better than others. Spain, France, and Italy have all done badly, but Germany and Portugal have much better outcomes than the UK.

The point about test and trace plus limited lockdowns is that you can play whack-a-mole with clusters, which does a far better job of preventing transmission than anything short of a vaccine.

Countries with aggressive test and trace and compulsory self-isolation have done best of all - and with limited economic damage.

None of this should be rocket science, but apparently it's not a priority for the UK government which has literally used a deadly pandemic as an excuse to hand out billions of pounds of public cash to mates, cronies, and party donors. With no expectation of any effective service provision in return.

Literally. That is not exaggeration in any way. It's on the record - including some court records - that the UK gov has been doing this.

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Re:London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain by mafribe on Saturday December 19, 2020 @06:38PM (#25482364)

  aggressive test and trace 
  compulsory self-isolation

Yes.

An interesting question is why that has not been possible in European countries. A high-ranking politician of my acquaintance stated privately, and very clearly, that it was exaggerated concern for privacy (of a population that has no concern using the products of Facebook, Google and similar trackers, not to mention mobile phones), stoked by a "privacy maffia", made meaningful test and trace (along the lines of Taiwan and other SE Asian states) political suicide, which is why him and others, despite knowing better, did not bother floating this.

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