Comments by "Steve Parker" (@steveparker8065) on "Coronavirus: How some countries started to exert control over the Virus - BBC News" video.

Stop making excuses for the terrible underfunding of our NHS over the past ten years. We have well over 12% death rate compared with other countries like Germany who have less than 5% death rate. The difference is the medical care, this is seen globally. Yes, lockdown measures help stop the spread, but once infected we have one of the highest death rates globally. Those with the best health services had the lowest death rate.
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@thomasgrabkowski8283 There are many factors from social distancing timeframe to testing rates. But if you have a look on the live global feed, you will clearly see far lower death rates in countries with a good national health service. Some have less than 2% death rate, while we have more like 13-14% death rate, many of those countries have the same problems with test kits and logistics that we have. Not to mention it could be argued that a well equipped health service would have access to more test equipment / labs.
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@thomasgrabkowski8283 and those 23 million Americans Trump took off health care have been tested? Point is those without insurance won't be able to get to a doctor or a hospital and aren't likely to get tested.
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@christinevenner183 Yes and that is universal. While we can't be sure until the final figures, it's understandable to draw a parallel between death rates and health of the population / quality of health care system. These figures have been created over the past month or so and all countries have these issues regarding Test kits and logistics. The defining factor is the health of the population and the state of the health care system. We can adjust these figures to cover things like test kits available to population or timeframe / strictness of lockdown etc. But we are just comparing the total number of cases to total number of deaths, the same factors apply to all countries. The availability of test kits and labs etc is also affected by the quality of the health care system.
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@poolie6662 Privatisation is sucking money out of the NHS, the government are putting 4% less extra investment in than 10 years ago. Healthcare visitors are largely myth and cost the taxpayer less than your average conservative politician. The NHS has served us well for over 60 years saving millions of lives and restoring the health many generations of Brits. The only time it seems to suffer is when the Tories are in power as demonstrated by these figures. Annual NHS spending increase under Blair (Labour): 6.1% Annual NHS spending increase under Brown (Labour): 5.4% Annual NHS spending increase under Major (Tory): 4.7% Annual NHS spending increase under Thatcher (Tory): 2.7% Annual NHS spending increase under Cameron (Tory): 1.4% Annual NHS spending increase under May (Tory): 1.1%
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@poolie6662 I just gave the actual figures on spending. And yes spending goes up every year as we grow as a nation, paid for by the extra taxes and N.I. contributions. Actually the NHS health tourism was part deals we made with other countries who do the same for our citizens.
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