So here's the deal on this virus

[Burney]

I agree. As you say some countries needed to respond with what they thought was best for their own demographics etc. Some countries I feel have looked at the outcomes in Italy and Spain and thought they’d see the same things in their hospitals so took a similar approach when it probably wasn’t necessary (thinking of the other Nordic countries). They’re now put up as success stories when the truth is they probably overreacted a little bit. People keep comparing Sweden to Norway in terms of deaths per million as though Norway has won a competition, when they’d probably wish they got to have another crack at it if it only meant an increase in unemployment by 1% instead of 5% (among other things) with only a thousand or so deaths.

Comparing New Zealand to other countries is properly taking the piss.

It's not just demographic, of course, it's political. Our politics and media at the moment are so polarised that the government will get - attacked whatever it does. And while it's possible to reason and be rational when - as in Sweden's case - you're talking about a few hundred or thousand dead more or less, it's impossible to do that when the numbers are in the tens of thousands. Put simply, no UK government could have made that call and stayed in office.

[Billy Goat Sverige]

It's not just demographic, of course, it's political. Our politics and media at the moment are so polarised that the government will get - attacked whatever it does. And while it's possible to reason and be rational when - as in Sweden's case - you're talking about a few hundred or thousand dead more or less, it's impossible to do that when the numbers are in the tens of thousands. Put simply, no UK government could have made that call and stayed in office.

The Prime Minister here has been quite clever really. He just pops up every now and then but for the most part the whole thing is being taken care of by the Public Health Agency and they’re making all the big decisions. Half the dead have come from care homes so even though that’s more a failure of government the Public Health Agency have been getting all the grief.