IMO anyone who thinks the government have handled this well to date is either easily pleased or a fanboy
As little as 2 weeks ago BoJo was making light of the situation on national TV when it was already in the country, the WHO were criticising our approach and senior clinicians were warning of the likely escalation. We had Grant Shapps (yes the transport secretary) on TV saying we were right and every other countries response was populist only for our 'scientists' to suddenly realise our approach of herd immunity would kill tens if not hundreds of thousands which led to us completing a complete U-turn
Where was the forward planning and allocation of resources, we've now got to the point where the front-line NHS workers are begging for the correct PPE to deal with the escalating casualties and the main bow wave hasn't hit them yet
But even with all that i watched BoJo last night and thought he was much better and far more professional, gone was the play acting and buffoonery to be replaced with someone who finally looked like he grasped the seriousness of the situation and was back in the game. He'd finally taken the decision that needed to be taken, great now we can move forward and deal with whatever hits us
Went to bed, got up this morning and switched on the TV to find all professionalism and competence had evaporated into the ether. We had Michael Gove requiring 3 live TV interviews to get his story straight on something as basic as what happens to children where the parents live apart…..surely someone thought of that, the PM has several kids by multiple women, you’d of thought he at least would of twigged to the point
24 hours after his big speech we now have total chaos over who and what constitutes a critical worker or business and Matt Hancock has briefed that anyone who can’t work at home should go to work
For my job (oil and gas) we do a huge amount of training and role playing around major emergency management, we’re taught the most critical thing in dealing with any incident is communication and understanding of the incident and the plan. His own close circle of senior advisors don’t know what’s going on how’s the general public supposed to?
It’s shambolic and nowhere near good enough. It’s not like mistakes are going to lead to a bit of an overspend on a project, these decisions will be literally life or death for some