No lockdown; a mere 250 deaths. Mainly tests & tracing but also protecting & treating of vulnerable. Population 51 million. For God's sake, western politicians, learn from this.

Why do you fail to even allude to the accepted and acknowledged (by the NHS and others) reason of the 2017/8 spike?

The incorrect 'flu jab was issued and, simply, proved ineffective in curtailing influenza cases - for that particular year.

Using a basic and well known error to back up your argument is, at best, unfortunate - and you will see that the error was replicated in other countries, such as the USA.

Almost every time I mention that this was due to the wrong vaccine. In fact I got Flu myself that year, despite having the jab. What on earth has the reason to do with the reality? The fact that this season of Flu saw 50,000 excess deaths in England & Wales alone illustrates that the current CoronaVirus count of 28,000 in the entire UK means it is nowhere near as lethal as media claims. Government has over reacted. They didn't Lockdown to stop that Flu epidemic. Why do it now? If they had intelligently concentrated on the elderly & vulnerable & given far more protection and treatment to them, deaths would be far less and collateral damage minute.

During the 2017/2018 winter period, it was an unknown unknown that the flu jab wouldn't work. Once it came to light that there was a flu epidemic killing many people and that the jab had been ineffective, the proverbial horse had bolted after the stable door had been closed. The virus that year had spread before there was a chance to restrict it; with COVID-19, we have been ahead of the curve to some degree in forcing a lockdown to restrict its spread; and it is working! Imagine how many deaths there might have been had we not had an enforced lockdown this time around? The Stephen Fry video posted on this forum previously, posited a figure of around 600,000, NOT 30,000 as was the case with the 2017/18 flu epidemic.

Well judging by the South Korea model; far fewer. And none of the ramifications.

As somebody who is currently living in South Korea, I’d like to give my views on the whole lockdown situation. It’s rather long so bear with me.



If Alien intelligent life had the misfortune to visit Planet Earth and saw the UK and South Korean Coronavirus statistics, they would logically assume South Korea had total lockdown the UK didn’t. This would, of course, be incorrect. So why is that?

I think lockdown in the UK and other countries has always been and always will be pointless and meaningless, yet will turn out to be probably the worst and most damaging event there will ever be in my lifetime, which I’ll go on to later.

So let’s first compare and contrast how the UK and Korea have dealt with what I believe are the 3 main factors which contribute to how the virus, is contained and eradicated. This is very useful because the UK and South Korea are at polar opposite ends of the scale with regard to the severity of the virus’s impact and with regard to the efficiency and competence of how each country has dealt with it. It might help make it clearer that lockdown in the UK was ill advised and quite irrelevant when factoring in the the main causes of covid’s rapid spread throughout the country.

No 1 is PPE. In the UK the appalling lack of PPE in hospitals and care homes has been a huge factor in its uncontrolled spread. A scandalous lack of foresight and putting money before people’s lives. Remember South Korea offered to supply comprehensive PPE to the UK in January and the government turned it down. During the MER's outbreak 3 years ago, South Korea learned that this was one the biggest causes of the spread and they made sure all doctors and nurses were fully equipped for a future pandemic and its paid off massively.

The second major factor is people travelling from abroad. The total lack of any testing or quarantining of people arriving in the UK on flights is an astonishing dereliction of duty, completely reckless and beggars belief especially given the fact it’s still happening now. People arriving at UK airports have been greeted with chaos and a total lack of organisation or direction. They’ve just been told to “get the bus home” An unbelievable shambles.

The third reason is testing and tracing. There has been a complete lack of of any kind of adequate testing in the UK, especially for those on the frontline. A total lack of understanding of the technology involved and the equipment required to test efficiently. In Jinju, which is a relatively small city, there a testing marquees everywhere you go. Motorway slip roads , bus terminals, shopping areas are all places where you see them. Anybody can ask to be tested if they wish. There’s a hopeless lack of tracing in the UK too, especially with regard to those people who’ve been in close contact with those who test positive. If somebody here in Jinju tests positive then there is an emergency alert that goes out to everyone’s phone telling us where that person has visited. Those places will then be closed down for a few days and the people who've been to any of them are told to get tested. This has been incredibly successful and smart.

So I firmly believe It’s these three reasons why Korea has only around 10 new cases a day compared to the UK's 5000, without ever having any need for a full lockdown. I would therefore suggest the severe lockdown implemented by the UK and begged for by the public does not in any way account for the rapid spread of the virus. Maybe 1% and 99% for the reasons I’ve stated above. So the closure of most shops, cafes, restaurants and small businesses with people being forced to stay at home for weeks or possibly months, is pointless and irrelevant when viewing the bigger picture. Yet the repercussions will be felt for generations and will have an adverse effect on our children and our grandchildren.

 I'm therefore convinced the free movement of people, with the maintaining of some semblance of normal life has virtually no effect on the spread of CO’Vd 19, because if it was the case then it would have happened here in Korea for sure. Most people never stopped going to cafes, never stopped shopping, never stopped going out. There was just sensible social distancing, people wore masks and there was hand sanitiser everywhere. The schools and universities closed along with festivals concerts and sporting events but that was about it.

Korea got the balance between coronavirus risk and the continuation of a functioning society and economy exactly right. They dealt brilliantly with the 3 major factors in the rapid spread of the virus, The UK dealt with them appallingly. The cases and deaths are so high in the UK because of those 3 factors. It’s not caused by people sitting on a beach, families outside having a picnic, teenagers drinking in a park or people going for a drive. It’s preposterous to even think that. But the media and government has focussed entirely on fear mongering and laying full responsibility on the public. “Stay at home” “protect the NHS” etc. The easiest way to get people to support a government is to generate fear and this has been done to perfection by the media. It helps to deflect blame away from the government’s reprehensible handing of the virus from day 1 and the criminal neglect of the NHS and the funding of public institutions, over the last 30 years.

So with the media generated fear in place, all the scared people beg the government for a lockdown: “please save us from this terrible virus” they cry. It’s a completely irrational fear because in the majority of cases, it only causes death or severe illness to old people and those with underlying health problems. Of course every time somebody younger dies, the media pounce on it and wheel out the relatives to tearfully tell everybody to “stay at home”, but it’s an anomaly. On average 1500 people die in a single day in the UK and some of these are young fit people. It’s a reality of life that there’s unexpected death. There a total and utter lack of perspective. Then because of this media generated fear, people turn on each other. Spying on neighbours, shaming people on social media, when a friend or relative visits their house. I saw on one social mediapage the other day, a post about 2 underage girls who were pissed in a park and the hatred aimed towards them was extraordinary. People suggesting they should be tasered or put in solitary confinement. These girls I'm guessing, were about 14. I’ve also seen numerous times on social media people saying there should be martial law imposed. It’s just terrifying, the skewed mindset of people, when they are full of fear. Then you have Derbyshire police flying drones over couples walking their dog and putting it on social media to humiliate them. So you soon have an Orwellian state as well as a police state and what can only be described as a living hell.

What I find so disturbing is when you question lockdown and the total loss of people’s liberty, you get accused of putting money over life. It’s utter nonsense and the opposite of that. The repercussions of lockdown will be so severe, they will undoubtedly cause many more deaths and more misery in the long run. Small businesses will go up the wall, Unemployment will skyrocket, the cost of living will skyrocket, mental health issues will skyrocket, suicides will skyrocket, homelessness will skyrocket. You will also have people needlessly still too scared to go out and socialise, to hug each other, to go to the football, to go to a festival. Then when the economic downturn becomes so intolerable, what will happen about protest? People will either be too scared to congregate in large numbers or the government will just ban it, using the excuse that it could be a threat to public health. How perfect a situation is that for a government failing its people?

Sadly, I believe people will retreat further into their “safe” virtual world of social media and social distancing will be completely normalised. Yet in reality this dystopian world will have been created on a lie and an illusion. I do think a few people are slowly beginning to realise they’ve been duped and I think the government realise they’ve made yet another almighty blunder with the lockdown and they’ll soon be desperate to get out of it before the nation is bordering on total collapse. So they will turn to their friends running the media for help. So expect the narrative to change soon to telling people not to be scared and that it’s not as dangerous as you think etc. But it’s probable that most people are so indoctrinated with this irrational fear, that they won’t buy it, despite it being the actual reality.

Anyway that’s my take on it.

Thanks Steve; fascinating and 100% along my own thought lines.

Thanks for taking the time to write this Steve. It really brings to life a sane approach to this virus, and contrasts powerfully our pathetic, media led muddled response.

I am sure you are right on the imminent media turn around, the seeds are already there. We have reason to hope for a grown up response going forward, and much reason to question and not let off the hook our "leaders" who have let us down so very badly.

On Steve's first and third points, we can clearly point to the British government's austerity mindset in not funding the NHS adequately to pay for PPE and widespread testing facilities. Now we are in the middle of the lockdown, they suddenly seem to be able to conjure up billions of pounds out of thin air. It makes you wonder ...

"If Alien intelligent life had the misfortune to visit Planet Earth and saw the UK and South Korean Coronavirus statistics, they would logically assume South Korea had total lockdown the UK didn’t. This would, of course, be incorrect. So why is that?"

I've met with many Alien Intelligent life who visit Earth frequently but they do not regard it as a misfortune, rather as a tremedously exciting adventure to see a most fascinating planet full of great beauty (not referring to me) and extraordinary animals. Pretty sure many visit the skies over Korea.

Most of these intergalactic tourists would love to meet far more Earthlings (like me) but there's a strict clause in the Tour Agreement that they are not permitted to land in their Saucers and exit their space craft because the inhabitants (us) are considered highly dangerous, unpredictable and possibly completely insane.

## I've never met a very famous Alien which is pretty odd for me.