Thread by @drStuartGilmour

The Blitz (nazi terror bombing campaign of the UK) killed 40-50,000 people in a population of 41 million. #COVID19 has killed 130,000 people in a population of 65 million people – it is nearly twice as bad as the blitz. Let’s compare responses.

In response to the bombing of urban centres the UK Tory government evacuated a million women and children to the countryside, introduced a curfew, enforced a blackout and banned certain forms of speech harming the war effort.

They moved schools to the country or closed them, causing major social disruption. historyextra.com/period/second-…

They also provided support for sheltering from bomb attacks, built up a huge force of anti-aircraft guns and rushed aircraft and pilots to defend the skies. They deployed radar for the first time to help in early warning and prediction.

Imagine instead how modern Britain would have responded to this crisis. The government would have delayed declaring a blackout, and right-wing newspapers would argue it was an excessive curtailment of civil liberties.

The PM himself would say “I will use as many garden lights as I want” and promptly see his house blown apart; The Sun would publish pictures of him bravely in hospital and worry about how bad things would be if he had caught one.

Spiked would argue that the real threat to British liberties is not the massed Nazi forces in France but the curfew. Government ministers would agree and take on Spiked writers as advisors.

Dido Harding would oversee a program that siphoned 35 billion pounds of public money to Tory mates to build an air raid warning system only dogs could hear.

Reports of huge masses of bombers over the UK coast would be dismissed as the result of using “too much radar” (if we were using sonar it would no doubt be derided as a “Pingdemic”).

Rich business leaders would demand an end to evacuations and blackouts because they couldn’t find staff and their businesses were being damaged.

Some American economist on twitter who had built a model that correctly predicted 4 of the last 4 elections would get 90,000 likes for wrong theories and snarky comments about how experts on air warfare don’t understand gravity.

Daily Mail editors would hint darkly that the main victims of the bombing raids were people with disabilities and poor people so who cares anyway? Conspiracy theorists would argue most of the deaths were because of badly built housing, not bombs.

Previously credible epidemiologists and injury specialists would argue that children can’t be harmed by bombs because their small bodies can fit in the cavities of collapsed buildings – no need to evacuate or close schools!

One of those annoying “just a devils advocate” economists would point out that most of the homes destroyed were in slums or low quality housing, and Britain needed a bit of urban renewal so really it was all a blessing in disguise.

Anti-blackout activists would picket air raid shelters and take potshots at barrage balloons. In the right wing papers “concerned” commentators would worry about the real toll of the blitz: infectious diseases spread in bunkers.

The US president, while denying the bombs were falling, would argue the problem was the modern Anti-aircraft guns and recommend people use catapults and rifles which “everyone” was telling him are more effective against bombers.

Apparently sensible doctors would publish a statement from someone nowhere town (with “great” in front) saying we should just learn to live with it, and anyway the health effects of having curtains drawn mean the blackout is the real risk to children.

Conspiracy theorists on youtube would claim that most of the deaths were actually caused by falling Spitfires and some clown conservative commentator would complain that “the cure is worse than the disease”.

Then when the Soviets finally captured Berlin and ended the nazi war, after 6 years of terror, the right wing press would hail Johnson’s leadership and ask its readers to imagine how bad things could have got if Labour were in power.

All these responses seem preposterous when they’re about a war, but to epidemiologists it’s equally preposterous that there would be so much denialism, delay, obfuscation and dishonesty about COVID19!