Covid-19 in Britain as the country enters ‘Stage 2’

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Covid-19 in Britain as the country enters ‘Stage 2’

Give the State an inch and it will take a mile

There’s probably never been an event such as this present covid-19 pandemic that keeps on giving when it comes to the failings of the government – and the general capitalist system. The structure of society is just not geared up to deal with such emergencies – even when this emergency was flagged up a couple of months before it landed on the shores of the sceptred isle.

The government is stuck in its neo-liberal, laissez faire ideology which has convinced them that state intervention should be reduced to a minimum – that is, unless it helps to bail out the financial structure upon which it all depends, as followed the debt-created crisis of 2008. Capitalism itself has the in-built desire to make money out of any opportunity – and something like a pandemic offers huge opportunities to benefit from the suffering of others.

Although the Government still doesn’t have an ‘exit strategy’ to the present lock down in the UK there is a conversation starting about what will happen when such a lowering of the restrictions begin. However, there are some very concerning aspects to some of these ideas which – I fear – will be allowed to be introduced just because people are so fed up with their lives being disrupted in all cases – almost destroyed in others. This is fertile ground for a disreputable and manipulative government and security services to introduce measures which would never have been allowed in ‘normal’ circumstances.

My concerns increase in this field when these ideas seem to be introduced and ‘discussed’ for a short period of time but then seem to fall into the background as the noise of other events takes front stage. But lack of a high profile for these serious matters doesn’t mean they have gone away and there are probably more people working on these topics than on the infrastructure and method for the introduction of mass testing, for example.

Not the time to apportion blame

This is the refrain from the Government on an ever more regular basis now. As their errors and lack of any structure in their response to the pandemic increases every day those who speak for the government (either those in positions to do something or their pet hangers on) are trying to fend of criticism by saying the review of what has (and has not) happened during this crisis should be put off to some indeterminate time on the future.

This is the cry of all incompetents – whether they be in government or business. In this way they hope to make those who criticise the actual guilty ones as they bring up matters which prevent the government ‘concentrating on matters in hand’.

Its the same that’s happening in business and the wider society. Companies and organisations are not processing matters they should in a timely manner because of the virus – with the hope that when there’s a return to ‘normality’ all will be forgotten.

If, in truth, that does happen then the people of this country have only themselves to blame for what happens (or doesn’t happen) next time around.

Testing

As always the matter of testing, or more exactly not-testing, is still not being addressed in an appropriate manner – even when predictions of the final death toll are predicated on the failure of testing in the past.

In a previous post I criticised an ‘expert’ who stated that 40,000 dead would not be a surprise, long before the fatalities had hit half that amount. But just over a week ago more detail was added to the stark figure – which I thought that just stating it would only increase fear and panic among a sizeable proportion of the population. (I’ve never understood why we allow news to be drip fed or released before official statements were made. These people are just treating everything like a game.)

Anthony Costello, (University College London UCL), to the Health and Social care Select Committee, 17th April;

The UK will have

‘… probably the highest death rate in Europe. We have to face the reality of that, we were too slow in a number of things,’ speculating the fatalities could reach 40,000 before things are totally under control.

We are going to face further waves and so we need to make sure we have a system in place that cannot just do a certain number of tests in the laboratory but has a system at district and community level. …. transformations are going on now with General Practice, with the public health Local Authority outbreak teams and it will fall on them to put into place a system that enable you to test people rapidly in the community, in care homes and to make sure the results are got back to them very quickly. And we also maintain social-distancing, of a kind, after we’ve left the national lock down.

… As the WHO (World Health Organisation) has said all along you need to find cases, you need to test those you can. You trace their contacts, you isolate them, you do social-distancing but most important of all you do it all at speed.’

Since then we’ve learnt that the overwhelming number of those who had died in care homes were not part of the figures given out every afternoon. Now that statement is accompanied by the phrase ‘in hospital’ and as the 20,000 figure was passed over the weekend the 40,000 might well be surpassed.

But the questions that have to be asked if Costello’s predictions are proven to be correct are;

  • why was the UK so ill-equipped to deal with the arrival of the virus when it had longer time to prepare than the rest of Europe?
  • why did the Government lie so blatantly that they were prepared for the arrival of a pandemic through previous role playing exercises and knowing that they weren’t why didn’t they immediately start to mitigate the effects of their lack of preparation?
  • why did they just stand there like rabbits mesmerised by car headlights?
  • why is it, 11 days after Costello’s interview on the 17th April, has the government not taken into account the very last words of his contribution on the radio that all testing and tracing has to be done ‘at speed’?

This was the response of Jeremy Hunt, the Chair of the Committee, on World at One, Radio 4, 17th April;

‘Now is not the tight moment to look back, I’m sure we’ll do that exhaustively. …..

[This morning]

‘we heard more from the Health Secretary than we’ve ever heard before about the importance of mass community testing because if you look at Germany (25% more people, death rate 33% of that of the UK), or [South] Korea with no more than 9 deaths in any single day. They’ve done it through testing in the community. And what needs to happen now, if we’re going to emulate the best practice globally, is a massive ramp-up, not just in the testing but in the tracing of everyone who’s been in contact with someone who has the virus, the quarantining, and that is a very manpower intensive process. And if we’re going to be in a position where we can actually track and trace every single person who has had covid or might have had covid in three weeks time [when the lock down next gets reviewed]. …

That is a huge logistical undertaking and it’s clear none of the big decisions have been taken on that. We don’t know yet how much will be done by local government, how much will be done centrally, how much can be done by an app. But if we’re going to copy the best in the world then that’s what we need to do.’

When asked if this meant that the country was just flailing around looking for a testing strategy let alone in the ability to institute such a regime Hunt said;

‘I’ve been one of the people who’s been saying we need to move much faster to testing alongside the very best in the world. We now have this 100,000 to ramp-up. …

… a test is not a cure, a test helps you if you can isolate who has the virus and who they’ve been in contact with and isolate them as well. And we now need to see some very rapid decisions. One of the reasons the testing took too long to ramp-up was that it was all done centrally by Public Health England. Now the Health Secretary today said that he hadn’t decided whether it was going to be done centrally or with local government and I think one of the lessons we can reasonably draw from the slowness of ramping things up centrally on the testing is that this is something we should trust local government to help us with when we move out of the lock-down.’

When asked why the Government had still not decided on that Hunt said;

‘That’s true but they also said they recognise that this was part of the solution, and I haven’t heard it that explicit before. So I think that as with testing, I think they have got the right intentions but we need to work very fast. …. last week in the Committee meeting the Doctor from Korea said they had 1,000 people doing contact tracing, in central and local government. And Neil Ferguson was talking yesterday on the radio about the huge national effort. And this could be tested out in places like Yorkshire or Cornwall today because those are parts of the country that we’ve got relatively few covid cases. And so we could start seeing whether it is possible to lift the lock down by replacing it with the testing and contract tracing. That really has to be the next stage.’

When asked whether he was requesting, suggesting or demanding this from the Government as the issue of testing had been talked about week after week and all that is announced are targets Hunt said;

‘All I would say is in the situation we’ve just got to look at what works best around the world and it’s very clear the stand out country in Europe is Germany, the stand out country in the world is [South] Korea, also Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, so we were behind on testing but now there’s been some good progress made on testing, we’re up to 18,000 tests yesterday, which was a whole lot better than a week ago. The next bit is not just to test but to actually put in place in the community a system so that as we had in first begun a couple of months ago that was stopped on 12th May [he meant March], a system where anyone who thinks they got covid symptoms can call 111, they get a test immediately and then once they’ve had the test we then talk to them about who they’ve been in contact with, test them and isolate them, and that’s what international best practice is.’

Hunt basically said nothing during this interview – not a surprise but it’s useful to remember that even in situations as serious as the present pandemic politicians still follow the same tactics when it comes to answering questions. They have obviously learnt from Peter Sellers who gave this ‘Party Political Speech’ way back in 1958.

In this interview you could sense the bewilderment of the journalist who had the unfortunate job of interviewing such an idiot. Hunt was quoting best practice in countries (mainly in Asia but also in Germany) but didn’t seem to accept that the UK should have been emulating that ‘best practice’ for weeks and was still talking about it happening at some indeterminate time in the future.

Another question that arises from Hunt’s statement is if testing (and presumably tracing) was taking place up the 12th March why was it stopped?

He seems to recognise that a more community based testing process had to be developed, using all available resources at both national and local level but now, more than two weeks later, the testing process is fraught with problems; tests have to be booked online and there aren’t enough ‘slots’ for those requesting a test with them all going in the first hour of each day; there aren’t enough testing centres close to where the people who want the tests are situated; only now is the army being brought in to assist in the process; and just three days from the end of the month when we were promised that the daily figure of those being tested would be 100,000 (still a ludicrously low number) there are barely more than 30,000 tests being carried out on a daily basis five weeks in to the lock down.

And these tests are still being done without a process of contact tracing in place and there doesn’t seem to be any time scale when such follow-up will take place.

Recommended reading

As we are in the middle of a pandemic I decided to re-read Daniel Defoe’s ‘A journal of the plague year’, the year in question being 1665, the place London, the plague the bubonic. It’s fiction but Defoe did a lot of research (he didn’t remember much of the outbreak himself, being only 5 at the time) and he mingles fact with fiction in a way at times you are not sure which is which.

In a previous post I said it seems society hadn’t learnt from the ‘Black Death’ of 1348 (in Britain) as the modern tactic to deal with it was to hide away and hope the Angel of Death would pass over. In 2020 I had expected that the response would have been more aggressive, ‘challenging’ the virus and using our technology and highly developed medical skills to weather the pandemic in a different manner – as we now all know that hasn’t been the case.

In 1665 Londoners (who were most heavily affected by the plague – although it did huge damage in various parts of the country as well) either ran away, stayed at home or died. They hadn’t learnt from the 1348 outbreak (most probably didn’t know there had been a similar situation three hundred years earlier) which isn’t surprising as they thought – wrongly – that transmission was by human contact not understanding that it was carried on the fleas from rats.

The present pandemic is transmitted by direct contact with an infected person and its quite interesting to see the parallels with what happened in 1665 and what is happening now. The changing of a few details and you could be reading a contemporary report of the plague in London today – which is now, as it was 360 years or so ago, the epicentre of the outbreak in Britain.

To give a couple of examples of similarities.

Certain doctors and scientists believed that fires, both in the streets and in the homes, would ‘purify’ the air and thereby make it safer to move around. But there wasn’t agreement on what should be burnt. Some argued for wood fires, with a sub-group arguing for very specific wood. Others believed that coal fires (with all the toxic gases that were released from the coal that came from the north east – there was a huge trade in coal during the outbreak) did the trick. I don’t know if the two sides ever arrived at a consensus – I assume not. But today we have the debate between those arguing for the use of masks and those who think not. Whether that will ever be resolved we will have to wait and see – but I won’t be putting any money on it.

Defoe also related the story of a certain individual who had a leg wound which reacted in specific ways when in the presence of those who looked healthy but were in fact infected and carriers of the disease. Who needs Apple, Google and the NHSX app?

Other versions can be found on the Project Gutenberg website.

Hypocrisy grows as the virus diminishes

The hypocrisy of the odious Tories knows no bounds. At 11.00 on Tuesday 28th April there was a minutes silence for those ‘key workers’ who had died in the last few weeks with symptoms of the covid-19. Also, the day before, the Government announced that the families of those who had died in the NHS would receive a cash handout – and it could be extended to others, presumably to the likes of transport workers as they are the only other ones that I am aware have suffered fatalities in the last month or so.

As mentioned before the Tories are the very people who have been attempting to destroy the established principles of the NHS and have been making every effort in putting the money making aspects of the service into private hands. Being so gutless they don’t propose open privatisation – they prefer the stealth variety in the hope people won’t notice the service being produced for profit. They have constantly lied when challenged about funding and massage the figures so they can justify to themselves that they are maintaining the same level of service. However, the unions, the workers, those who make use of the services and even the management know that the NHS has been starved of cash for decades.

Like the money minded capitalist they are the Tories think they can buy their way out of the problems they themselves have created – lack of preparedness for the pandemic when it arrived; muddled action when the virus was in the country; lack of Personal Protective Equipment (which continues even more than five weeks into the lock down and more than six weeks after the first virus related death); no clear strategy of how to go forward.

Wouldn’t the families of those who have died rather have had those problems resolved than the cash payout? This is just blood money from the Tories.

And the best thing of all it’s not their money. They will take the credit for providing this ‘insurance’ but it’s future generations that will have to pick up the bill.

The app that does everything

… apart from know exactly where you are – according to the Government.

The saga of this miracle app that will help in the battle to defeat the coronavirus looks like it’s a story that will go on running for some time.

The idea of this use of technology came up even before the lock down was introduced in Britain but took a long time to become what could be called ‘government policy’. And as soon as it was first mooted concerns started to be expressed – both for privacy reasons and also whether it would be able to do what it was claimed.

To try and unpick this, starting with the practicalities.

Matters seemed to be moving on this at the beginning of April when it was announced that Apple and Google were working together on an app which would be compatible with the majority of the Smartphones out there. However, one of the important aspects of this app was that it used a decentralised system of passing data around (under pressure from human rights groups internationally).

On 12th April news came out that the NHS was going to use such an app – but it wasn’t stated clearly at that time whether it would be the same one on which the big companies were working.

But it seems the announcement was made before all the practicalities had been thought through.

For the idea to be effective a huge number of people would have to voluntarily sign up – in the region of 80% of all Smartphone users.

Then a report suggested that the UK was too technologically backward for the scheme to be reliable.

Another report suggested that too many Smartphones don’t have Bluetooth capability – the system that would be used for phones to ‘talk to each other. This would make the aim of 80% users signed up extremely difficult to achieve. (The article cited takes an anti-China stance initially – the important stuff comes a few paragraphs in.)

Other issues that came up in discussion were;

  • how accurate is the Bluetooth?
  • would people be prepared to have their phones constantly connected to Bluetooth?
  • what people will do when confronted when actually confronted with the app?
  • will be honest about the symptoms?
  • will some people will be tempted to troll – effectively by telling the app false information

And then, on 27th April, the NHS (i.e., the Government) decides they are not going to use the Apple-Google system after all as they want all information going to a centralised data base. They argue to better be able to use such data for research purposes but which means collecting more information than was first suggested. This argument has some validity, if you don’t know exactly who is involved how will you be able to build up a picture of how the virus has been and is spreading and where? The problem is the people in control of that data – do you trust the present Government?

This announcement came two weeks after Hancock’s big announcement, demonstrating yet again the Government doesn’t know what it’s doing.

On the matter of privacy.

In an effort to ally fears and criticism of breaches of privacy Apple and Google stated they would shut down the app once the need for it was passed.

On the 7th April there was a call for a pan-European tracking app – with the proviso that it had strong data protection built-in.

To give an idea of how the British Security Establishment sees such tracking and tracing it will be useful to read the words of Lord Evans, former head of MI5, on World at One, 13th April;

‘It’s a very intrusive set of proposals as far as we are aware. Obviously they have not yet been implemented.’

… There’s a social and health reason why this needs to happen. People are currently suffering real problems by being contained in their houses. And if the trade off for this is greater intrusion the people will probably want to do that.’

… The Government might say there is a trade off here. Obviously if you can’t accept that level of intrusion then there will have to be constraints on individual movements and who they are associating with. But I think the critical thing here is that this needs to be properly debated, it needs to be open in the way it is debated. There need to be rules and there needs to be redress if something goes wrong. We’re only going to get public support if we have these criteria met.

… We have to learn from our experience of using intrusive anti-terrorist powers that work better if there’s public consent, … if it is proportionate …. with accountability and oversight.’

In times of crisis the capitalist state always seeks to take advantage of people’s fears and introduce measures which would not be countenanced in normal conditions and there’s the distinct possibility the government would maintain this app long after the altruistic reasons for its initial implementation had passed – in the same way that identity cards were retained after WWII.

Some questions that arise from the very idea of this app;

  • at the moment everything is voluntary – but will people be pressurised in some way?
  • would people be denied access to certain geographical areas or even services if they don’t use the app?
  • would the government look at incentives to download and use the app – perhaps an earlier end to restriction?
  • what about people who don’t have a Smartphone?
  • is this just a cheap alternative to proper testing and tracing?

Quote of the last couple of weeks

On 23rd April Donald Trump, the American President suggested;

‘ …I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning? So it’d be interesting to check that.’

Perhaps a field trial could be organised, with Trump surrounded by his admirers, à la Jonestown 1978.

Exit Strategy

For England there still isn’t one – although due to the fact that countries in Europe are looking for various ways to move on from the strict lock down the Tories in Britain are having to show at least some sign that they are considering what to do in the future.

Both the Welsh and Scottish governments came up with some sort of strategy a few days ago. But especially in Scotland the First Minister there, Nicola Sturgeon, wasn’t able to miss the opportunity to play the Nationalist card and would go it alone if she thought fit – suggesting there would possible be border controls in the north of England. When she expanded upon this on the 27th April I heard a lot of ‘I’s’, as if she, and she alone, would make the decision. If there isn’t a ‘presidential’ style of Government in Westminster it’s looking very much that it has already been well established in Scotland.

Just goes to prove that Nationalism + Capitalism = Fascism

…. but matters will soon be brought under control

The Buffoon returned to London – and took up ‘the reigns of power’ – on Monday 27th April.

More on covid pandemic 2020-2?

Covid-19 over the Easter 2020 weekend in Britain 

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Covid-19 over the Easter 2020 weekend in Britain 

 Testing 

The BBC Radio 4 programme, Inside Science, on 9th April reported on a test that a team from Oxford University were starting to carry out (just in the Oxford area at the moment) to try to discover what proportion of a given population have, or have had, covid-19 using a new diagnostic tool called ‘nano 4 sequencing’.  

Using home testing kits they hope to build up a picture of how the virus has spread and it is hoped it will be able to inform a realistic exit strategy as well as testing a diagnostic tool which could be used at the early stage of the any future pandemic when (and not if) it arises in the future. More information at the Covid-19 in the UK Community. 

At the time of writing only 18,000 tests are taking place daily. The Government still argues it is ‘on track’ for the 100,000 tests per day in just over two weeks’ time. 

The lady doth protest too much, methinks 

The Buffoon has survived his stay in Intensive Care – some prayers have been answered, others not.  

However, I find his gushing conversion to the merits of the NHS and the staff who work there just a little too much to believe. In a previous post I attempted to highlight Johnson’s attitude to the NHS in the past and I’m sure he will be returning to such a stance when the euphoria of his survival subsides.  

He didn’t seem to accept the irony that the two nurses he named on his departure from hospital, thanking them for their care, were not from the UK – one from New Zealand and the other from Portugal. But then his anti-Europe stance wasn’t based upon conviction, merely political opportunism. 

In a video on Twitter he said; ‘We will win as the NHS is the beating heart of this country. It is the best of the country, it is unconquerable, it is powered by love.’ 

Well, it hasn’t survived over recent years with cash support from any of the governments the Buffoon has either supported or of which he has been a member – so being powered by love is all there is. 

Time will tell if he is just a total hypocrite or whether his time in hospital had brought with it a Damascene conversion. 

Insincerity seems to be catching as Carrie Symons wrote on Twitter that ‘she would never, ever, be able to repay the magnificent NHS’ in returning the Buffoon to her. 

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) 

For a few days this went out of the news as concerning the NHS – although has been a constant issue with care homes. However, it became a major issue (related to the NHS) on the evening of 10th April when Matt Hancock, the Health Minster, suggested that there wasn’t really a shortage of PPE. Millions of pieces had been delivered (742 million) but if there was a shortage it was due to NHS staff using too much of it and there wouldn’t be a shortage of PPE ‘if used correctly’.  

This story developed over the next couple of days with virtually all organisations of health workers coming out calling such a statement an insult to NHS staff – but with Hancock never retracting his earlier assertion.  

Why such a privileged rich boy, who would never knowingly be seen within a mile of someone who had contracted the virus, thinks he can make a judgement on whether PPE is considered necessary by a health professional is a mystery to me. In such circumstances people might be over-cautious but that’s better than being blasé, especially when the people of the UK are constantly being told we must be careful in all our personal interactions. 

On the Andrew Marr Show, on BBC 1 on 12th April, Alok Sharma, the Business Secretary, made an intervention on the matter of PPE but, I believe, condemned his own Government in the words he used. After saying he was ‘incredibly sorry’ that NHS staff were upset about being branded ‘wasteful’ when it came to PPE he added; 

‘.. that’s why we’ve set up a 24/7 hotline so people within the NHS and social care sector can phone and get that equipment. We’ve also said that we’ll be setting up a portal, in the next few weeks, [my emphasis] to make sure that people can directly key in their demands for PPE and we can then monitor that and get that out to them.’ 

The most relevant words above are those highlighted in bold. More than five weeks after the first covid-19 related death was reported in the UK (on 5th March) the Government is still saying that any monitoring of PPE requirements will not be in place until some unspecified time in the future. 

I’m not a supporter of small businesses but they seem to have be shafted by the Government – which constantly says it is the prime supporter of the entrepreneur. It seems that four weeks ago a call went out for all those companies who produce equipment that falls into the PPE category to make themselves known. However, since then most of these 100 or so companies had heard nothing and, according to Kate Hills, the founder of the Make it British Group, this is one of the reasons equipment is in such short supply. 

This just seems to indicate that there is nothing in the Government structure that is flexible enough to deal with exceptional circumstances. Presumably the bureaucracy that accompanies the buying of such equipment is such that it cannot adapt to smaller volumes even though, in the present circumstances, that would seem to be the quickest way out of the present impasse. 

As it is, we now have volunteer groups throughout the country making PPE for the NHS. Although this might show a positive spirit in the face of adversity it also goes to further demonstrate that the present government structure is ‘not fit for purpose’ – to use an awful cliché.  

The Tories show their true colours when it comes to the NHS 

The very fact that Hancock has made no attempt to respond to the condemnation of his statements that NHS staff were being wasteful in their use of PPE only goes to show the true colours of the Tories. For all their fancy words they have no respect for the principles of the NHS and if workers (who have been called almost super-heroes in the last few weeks) become responsible for the break down in the service if they dare to challenge the diktats of those in power. 

As a Government they merely react to events, had no strategy to deal with a pandemic and certainly have no exit strategy, but if there is criticism of their actions they throw the responsibility back on to the people – or any other scapegoat.  

Nightingale Hospitals 

On 10th April it was announced that two more of these temporary hospitals would be opened, one in Sunderland and the other in Exeter, in the next couple of weeks. Presumably neither of these will be as big as the one opened last week in London so why does it take so long? The one in London was completed in 9 days. But the main issue here is – if it is necessary to have these hospitals why weren’t they planned and construction started at the same time as those in London, Edinburgh and Manchester? There’s no shortage of money – the government is handing out cash in sackfuls.  

In a piece about the opening of the ExCel Nightingale it was mentioned that there are kilometres of copper piping throughout the complex – which is needed to provide oxygen to all beds. There won’t be a shortage of firms fighting to get the contract to de-construct these temporary hospitals – assuming that does happen sometime later in the year. Weighing in all that copper is a demolition company’s wet dream.  

Covid-19 throughout the world 

David Milliband, President of the International Rescue Committee, stated on 9th April the pandemic would cause ‘real carnage in the poorest countries of the world’ both in the health and economic sphere. The poor always suffer the most in these circumstances.   

Consequences of the pandemic 

On 9th April Kristalina Georgieva, Chair and Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that one of the results of the pandemic would be the worst global recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. 

Shortage of ventilators 

Why there was no order placed for more ventilators when the pandemic first started to spread west from China will be answered in the post-pandemic post-mortem and enquiry – not. In the meantime the UK Government has been going cap in hand to all countries in the world and as a result Britain is to get 60 portable ventilators from the German Army. I would have thought there were other more deserving countries in the world for such rare items of equipment but not in the Euro-centric world in which we live. 

Does the virus have a preference for non-white victims? 

This was a new development – although the trend must have been noticed before – that became public in Britain at the end of last week, the third of the lock down. But it seems it only became an issue in the UK after it was initially identified in New York. At that time the US Surgeon General, Dr Jerome Adams, reported that the virus was disproportionately effecting Black, Latino and other minority communities as, he suggested, ‘because they have a greater burden of cronic health conditions’. 

I initially thought that the figures in New York merely reflected the level of deprivation that exists in a city where some of the richest in the US share the pavements with some of the poorest. But matters may not be that simple – although poverty will almost certainly have a lot to say in the mortality rates. 

There was a call in Britain on 11th April that a study should be made of the disproportionality of deaths amongst Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people during this pandemic. Being 14% of the population they were 34% of the cases in critical care units. These are early days and it will take some time for any realistic conclusions to be made about this, not least as there was no information if there was one particular group who might have been effected over any other of the ethnic groups. 

The reason I say this is that a look at the health workers who have died of the virus in Britain (up to 11th April) the majority came from backgrounds in the Indian sub-continent – which is different from the results from the US, more particularly New York, where those with an Asian background would have be well outnumbered by those from an African or Latino background.  

British NHS statistics would seem to suggest that infection and death rates in India, for example, should be racing away – but they don’t seem to be doing so. Poverty in the country is almost certainly killing many more people every day than the covid-19 pandemic. 

This is yet another of the issues that must be looked at carefully to see if any patterns can be established. The results of any such studies will probably have little impact upon the present pandemic but as the world seems to have accepted that a pandemic can happen at any time such studies might be able to inform the next pandemic – which could arrive at any time, the next decade or next year. 

Those wanting a Government bail out 

On 9th April John Witherow, Editor of The Times, asked for the government to step in to stop newspapers going out of business. As newspapers have seen circulation drop dramatically over recent years this might just be throwing good money after bad as they might have failed even if the pandemic hadn’t influenced people’s newspaper buying habits. 

As we are now in the middle of the Easter holiday – the usual formal beginning of the holiday season – seaside towns have seen any income drop to nil. They are also asking for support due to the lock down. 

Nationalist children continue to behave badly 

I’m no fan of any politician in the Westminster Government (in fact no respect for politicians full stop) but as this pandemic continues I have an even more rapidly developing contempt for so-called ‘Nationalists’. With the Buffoon out of the game the ‘leaders’ in Scotland and Wales talk for the sake of talking to fill the gap in the TV slots.  

One example of this was uttered by the First Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, who, on 10th April said we (the Welsh) ‘won’t be bound by decisions made in Westminster and would only relax self-distancing measures when it’s safe to do so.’   

Unless the Scottish and Welsh governments are prepared to put in border controls between the periphery of the UK and England then the whole island must follow the same procedures at the same time. Petty-mindedness (the principle aspect of capitalist nationalism) is the last thing that we need currently if we are to leave the chaos of the pandemic behind.  

Who needs a vaccine? – a town in Germany has the answer 

In 1623, as the Bubonic Plague was cutting down people in Europe like a scythe harvesting corn, the people of the town of Oberammergau (population now 5,474) promised ‘God’ that they would put on a passion play every ten years if the plague was to pass over without the Grim Reaper adding to his tally. It ‘worked’ and no one in the town died. The Oberammergau Passion Play has taken place every ten years since (with only a couple of interruptions). 

There have been no cases of covid-19 in the town in 2020 – so far. 

There are a few points to be made here. 

  1. the promise of the Passion Play seems to be a somewhat complicated promise to make in any deal with ‘God’ – he could have got more I’m sure 
  2. there were probably many thousands of small towns and villages that were plague death free in 1623 – they just didn’t have an up and running PR team to broadcast it to the rest of the world, they just thought themselves lucky 
  3. there are still probably many hundreds of thousands of towns throughout the world in 2020 which have lost no victims to covid-19 
  4. but if those victimless towns now who want to remain so they know what to do – nothing to do with social-distancing, testing and tracing. They just have to promise whichever ‘God’ they recognise something really weird and outlandish 
  5. will Oberammergau announce to the world if someone were to die in the town due to covid-19? 

One law for the rich – and one for the rest of us 

Although the Scottish Chief Medical Officer was forced to resign after it emerged she had travelled to a second home on two occasions the same rules weren’t enforced when it came to Robert Jenrick, the Housing Minister, for doing virtually the same – that is two journeys which were not really considered ‘essential’. But because Jenrick was more deeply embedded in the establishment excuses were found to mean that he got away with it. There was an argument posited in his defence that he had only travelled no more than 40 miles – which is allowed in the Coronavirus Act, 2020. If it’s there I haven’t been able to find it yet.  

On the 10th April it was reported that a private jet, with 10 passengers from the UK, was forced to return to Britain by the authorities in Marseilles. It also seems that three helicopters were waiting to take the group to a luxury villa for a holiday. 

Now, as far as I know, a plane cannot take off from any airport in UK without providing full information to the relevant authorities. So why was the plane even allowed to leave the ground when all the population is supposed to be ‘in this together’?  

The police are starting to issue fines to people for sitting in public parks in the sunshine and there was a widely publicised account of a family being fined for travelling 200 miles to Devon ‘to go fishing’, on 12th April. Will there be any consequences for this group who, by their actions, have shown their contempt for the rest of the population? The answer to that question is obviously no – or if so with a fine that will merely be offset against tax. 

Is it sometimes best to say nothing? 

On 12th April Sir Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Welcome Trust, and a member of SAGE (an unfortunate acronym) which advises the present government. For some reason he felt it necessary to make the following statement on national television (the Andrew Marr Show on BBC 1); 

‘The number [of deaths] in the UK have continued to go up. I do hope that we’re coming close to the number of infections reducing and in a week or two the numbers of people needing hospital reducing and, tragically, in a couple of weeks’ time the number of deaths plateauing and then starting to come down. But yes, the UK is likely to certainly be one of the worst, if not the worst effected country in Europe.’ 

Why that last sentence? What good is it? It is merely speculation – without any associated evidence. Some ‘experts’ (as well as some politicians) seem to think they must say something to shock and get themselves extensively quoted. These ideas were repeated throughout the day. Why say something which only has the effect of making those who are worrying to be even more fearful?  

The first Tory to scapegoat during the UK pandemic 

When Jeremy Farrar made his ‘apocalypse UK’ statement on 12th April the response of Alok Sharma, the Business Secretary, wasn’t to reassure people that this wouldn’t happen as the government was fully on top of the pandemic, no, he chose to say ‘we have followed scientific and medical advice’. Meaning, it’s not our (the Government’s, the Tory’s) fault but that of the experts. 

As stated at the beginning of this series of posts the experts were only brought in for the regular press briefings so that, when anything hit the fan there were ready scapegoats upon which to rest all the blame. Sharma was the first to do so – perhaps earlier than I expected.  

Quote of the last few days 

The first time anyone, although not a Government voice, has publicly mentioned a possible exit strategy in the UK; 

On 10th April Neil Ferguson, one of the government’s ‘experts’ said; 

‘.. restrictions would have to remain in place for several more weeks but could then be lifted in stages taking into consideration age and geography but there would have to be introduce much larger levels of testing at a community level, really isolate cases and more effectively identify how transmission is happening.’  

But he added that this was only in his view and he was at pains to stress it was not the official view of the government.  

It’s good to hear the words being uttered. It is only hoped (probably in vain) that if this is the thinking that there should be a group, with a high level or responsibility, which is working on the manner of how such a strategy will be implemented. It needs planning and investigation so that such moves can be implemented at the first opportunity. However, I fear that we will be hearing the oft used phrase ‘in coming weeks’ when (or if) this is first uttered as Government policy.  

Exit strategy 

(this is an empty space – as always!) 

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Covid-19 in Britain just before the Easter ‘holiday’ 2020

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More on covid pandemic 2020-2?

Covid-19 in Britain just before the Easter ‘holiday’ 2020

Items of news that have come to light in the last few days.

Testing

As always, the first in the queue.

On 7th April Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, admitted that the failure to carry out testing early may have cost lives. He admitted that Germany had “got ahead” on testing and “there’s a lot to learn from that”.

But there seems to be little evidence that they have, certainly not going forward on this outbreak. Will they learn the lessons for the next outbreak?

Spain saw its daily number of virus deaths fall for a fourth consecutive day on Monday (6th April). Officials intend to begin testing even those without virus symptoms, saying: “We are preparing ourselves for de-escalation for which it is important to know who is contaminated to be able to gradually lift Spanish citizens’ lock down.”

This is a bizarre one this. The Government’s testing chief has admitted that none of 3.5m antibody kits work sufficiently. Now, I’m no expert, but if you are going to acquire something so important wouldn’t you make sure it was fit for the job BEFORE ordering 3.5 million? Politicians make these statements with a straight face and the rest of the population just let them get away with it. And how much have they spent on these kits they don’t want to use?

These kits were bought from China and as they have a regime in place now which allows people to carry on a more normal life based upon these tests we have to assume the Chinese believe the tests work. If they were so useless that a more general and widespread outbreak were to hit the country again then the present Chinese government wouldn’t survive the backlash. They don’t want to lose power so they are, surely, not going to take such a high risk with bum tests?

Yet for the British, who have no alternative they can use in their place, believe the kits don’t ‘work sufficiently’!

Because this country is so far behind in the testing stakes this will increase the period of the lock down and a general disaffection among the population. And who knows what that might lead to.

But we shouldn’t be concerned. On 8th April, Edward Argar, a Minister of State for Health (everyone wants to get their face on the tele at these press conferences, no?) stated that the government was ‘firmly on target to met its commitment of 100,000 tests a day by the end of the month’.

This was on the same day that it was announced that the count the day before was a mere 14,000 but the biggest surprise, at least to me, was that this involved less than 10,000 patients. Why the number of patients is less that the number of tests I don’t know but if it’s the case that to get a definite yes or no more than one test has to be taken from each – or at least some – individual even if the target of 100,000 per day tests is reached we are still a long way from getting around to testing the whole population.

Personal Protection Equipment (PPE)

This has fallen out of the news when it comes to supplying the NHS – but the problem hasn’t gone away.

On 9th April the Alzheimer’s Society complained that care homes might not be able to operate due the lack of testing and the shortage (or lack) of PPE. On the same day the National Care Association said that care homes were being left behind. They stated that ‘staff felt at risk’ and ‘it shouldn’t be right they (staff) are wearing plastic bags’ for protection.’

A ‘united front’ against the pandemic?

Unfortunately not. Not only is there no clear thinking in the UK the situation is repeated in Europe. On 7th April Mauro Ferrari, who had been President of the European Research Council, resigned after his suggestion that ‘a large scale scientific programme to defeat covid-19 be established providing the best resources to the best scientists’ was rejected by the EU.

Nationalist children behaving badly

It’s not just in Europe that politicians have their own agenda. The ‘devolved’ countries in the UK are also playing the nationalist political game. Prior to a meeting on the 9th April to produce a common approach to the lock down (probably the first sensible thing the Tory government has done – is it just a coincidence that the Buffoon is out of the game?) – both the Scots and the Welsh leaders wanted to get their voices broadcast on the media by pre-empting the meeting.

The four constituent parts of the UK will do the same thing together – this was just political posturing and gamesmanship.

Company greed and the bandwagon

It’s truly impossible to understand why companies make such bad decisions – although often (but nor always) when caught out they back down.

Waitrose was one of them. For weeks amongst the new brand of heroes have appeared those who work in the supermarkets – huge companies dominating the food retail market in the UK much more than in any other European country. Some one thought that – in the present situation – they could get away with following company policy when it came to time off. Wrong decision! Waitrose did a U-turn.

Liverpool Football Club – one of the richest clubs in the country in one of the poorest cities – thought it, too, should have the right to feed at the disaster funding trough. They, when shamed about it, also backed down.

Tesco’s – the biggest supermarket chain in the country saw it’s sales jump by 30% towards the end of March – due to the panic buying prompted by Government ineptitude. They have also benefited from business rate relief – introduced as a government ‘aid’ to struggling businesses in March 2020 – to the tune of £585 million. And, of course, with such a bonanza the most deserving of people will get the rewards. This year Tesco will pay out in the region of £635 million to its shareholders.

Begging letters must be filling the letter box at 11 Downing Street. P and O ferries are seeking a government bail out of £250 (Telegraph AM 7th April). Even little start-ups want to get their snouts in the trough, especially those involved with ‘new technology’.

Children getting free school meals

Although the figure has nothing to do directly with the pandemic I became aware, on 7th April, that as the schools are now closed due the pandemic those families will instead receive vouchers they can use in a number of supermarkets. What is the disgrace in this whole affair (forgetting that there are some problems in the distribution of these vouchers) is the number of children who are eligible – 1.3 million. This is the situation in one of the richest countries in the world – and the United Nations talks about abolishing poverty world wide by 2030. What chance is there of that when poverty stalks those capitalist countries which have been raping countries and stealing the resources of the planet for centuries

Johnson and NHS

This weekend was probably the first time the Buffoon has entered a NHS hospital without the aim of making some PR stunt. I can’t imagine him ever queueing in A+E after having fallen over at one of the Bullingdon Club dinners.

At the present time he couldn’t have done anything other than go to an NHS hospital – but they chose not to send him to the spanking new temporary Nightingale Hospital in London’s dockland.

Whilst he is there I wonder if he will be reflecting on what he has said about the NHS in the past – that’s rhetorical, of course he won’t. However, it might be useful to remember some of the things he has suggested the rest of us should have to put up with in the context of our health care.

In an article he wrote in 1995 he said:

‘ .. patients should have to pay to use the NHS so they will ‘value’ it more.’

Once the Buffoon had taken the opportunist decision to back the Leave side in the EU Referendum (don’t you remember the country was on tenter hooks for days as it awaited his decision – so much for his conviction on the matter) he went around the country saying that the ‘NHS would be funded by the savings made from leaving the EU’. Those figures were challenged then and have been ever since but once uttered he is unable to stop repeating them.

During the campaign for the leadership of the Tory Party in 2019 what he said he would do and what he had done in the past were contradictory, and fundamentally posed ‘an existential threat to our NHS’

This was just one of a number of lies he has told in the past which were also pointed out during this leadership campaign.

Before he got the top job he was part of the gang which was more than willing to see the NHS basically privatised through the back door, with NHS contracts worth £15bn being given to private companies, since 2015, despite government’s ‘no privatisation’ pledge.

A great deal was made in the speech which outlined the future budget for the NHS after the Tory victory in the General Election of December 2019 – many, however, questioned the figures.

And we mustn’t forget his compassion, demonstrated when shown a picture of a 4-year-old child being treated for pneumonia on the floor of a hospital A+E room.

As in most circumstances you can always rely on Trump to trump anyone else’s crazy ideas. He suggested that US ‘medical experts’ based in London go to treat Johnson – as if those staff in the NHS (who are praised every time a politician opens his or her mouth) aren’t capable enough. It also begs the question; if these doctors are so brilliant why aren’t they back home in the US helping out there – the country that has now been designated the epi-centre of the outbreak? (Telegraph AM, 7th April)

Trump later added that people everywhere were praying for the Buffoon – however, he didn’t say for what outcome.

How effective are Government measures?

Since the first post on this blog the argument has been that all the British government has done since the covid-19 infection took a hold in the country has merely been a reaction to circumstances and there has never been even an attempt to take control. They say what people can’t do because they have no idea of what they (the Government) should be doing. This attitude also gets them off the hook as their ‘strategy’ relies on people staying at home (whatever effect this will have on millions of peoples’ lives and the economy in general not withstanding).

One result of this approach is that there are innumerable ‘unintended consequences’. (One of these which I only realised myself yesterday, when a contractor came around to do a service check, was that with so many cafes and fast food places now closed ‘essential workers’, who used to rely on these places for their meals, now have nowhere to go.)

Another is that a decision might be made because it looks like the government is actually taking a stance when they have not really thought things through and perhaps have over emphasised the importance of the action. One such action, which was questioned on 7th April, was the closing of schools to the overwhelming majority of students.

Some scientists, having looked at the figures, are now saying that the closure of schools will have a minimal effect on the spread of the virus. Although the closures have little effect on the virus other costs are high; the children’s education suffers, it puts strain on family finances and it also has potential mental health consequences.

The financial winners …

Hedge funds short sell UK companies

Short selling is the practice where hedge funds and other financial speculators borrow shares in listed companies from pension funds and sell them in the expectation that they will fall in price. There’s an argument that short-selling in a crash exacerbates stock market slumps.

…. and losers

Meanwhile, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has warned low-paid workers, young people and women are likely to be hardest hit by the financial impact of the virus lock down. According to the IFS, low earners are seven times as likely as high earners to work in a business sector that has suspended trade, such as hospitality or retail. Workers aged under 25 are about two and a half times as likely to work in a sector forced to shut down, while women were around one-third more likely than men to work in an affected sector. “For the longer term there must be serious worries about the effect of this crisis on the young especially and on inequality more generally,” senior IFS economist Xiaowei Xu said.

House buyers or renters

Not surprisingly, given their obsession with home ownership, any financial support that has already been announced is weighted overwhelmingly towards those who are buying their homes, with certain ‘mortgage holidays’ and a relaxing of rules in general. However, that’s not the case for those who rent. They are being told they have to continue to pay rent even though they might have no income coming in whatsoever. If they don’t pay their rents they will be guilty of putting the whole rental market at risk – another area where failings in government are placed on the backs of the people.

The Government gives support to house buyers as that helps to ensure the profits of the property speculators and building companies that are their supporters and/or themselves. On the other hand renters are most often likely to be the poorest part of the population, those with low wages, zero hours or short contracts, single parent families, etc. Cuts in social housing provision (whether it be by Councils or Housing Associations) and the selling off of those properties that do exist have meant that the private rental sector has been cleaning up in recent years.

The Housing Benefit system has meant that billions of pounds has been given to private landlords whereas a proper and sustainable social housing programme would have reduced costs to the country and would have provided better housing in general to a greater proportion of those who will never be able to buy – or just don’t want to buy.

The number of workers being ‘furloughed’

There are great number of words being used during this pandemic which we have never used before or certainly not in the way they have been in the past. I don’t think I had heard the word ‘furlough’ being used for ordinary workers before. ‘Laid off’ was the term in most common use – but that had negative connotations. Now ‘laid off’ workers are now being ‘furloughed’ receiving 80% of their pay – but not necessarily with a guarantee of their jobs when this pandemic is brought under some sort of control.

It will be interesting to see how many of these companies, who have been taking the billions offered by the government, will then close down later in the year, being ‘unable to survive the consequences of the pandemic’.

But what is astounding is that, to date, there are 9 million workers on furlough. Apart from all the other effects the shut down is having on the long term future of working people this number itself should be enough to make our so-called leaders think of an effective way of getting the country moving as soon as possible.

Our capitalist system is showing itself unable to cope with such a crisis and instead just throws public money into the hands of private companies – both big and small.

A+E attendance

In the UK attendances at A+E departments around the country dropped by 25% in March 2020 in comparison with the same month in 2019. Why the surprise? Obviously the hypochondriacs are staying at home.

Quote of the last few days

This one of 8th April from Andrew Cuomo, Governor of the State of New York, when commenting on the disproportionate ratio of deaths, due to the covid-19 pandemic, in minority and poor communities:

‘Why is it the poorest people always pay the highest price? Let’s figure it out. Let’s do the work. Let’s learn this lesson and do it now.’

Is Cuomo just naïve or plain stupid? The poor, everywhere and every time, always pay the highest price. It’s a law of capitalism.

Exit Strategy

Obviously there’s nothing to talk about here.

However, it might be useful to remind those who are supposed to be in control of the actual meaning of strategy. My large Collins English Dictionary gives the following definition of strategy;

1. the art or science of the planning and conduct of a war; generalship; 2. a particular long-term plan for success, especially in business and politics; 3. plan or stratagem.

Perhaps the two words to pick out here are ‘plan’ and ‘success’. That is what the government of the Buffoon should be working on. That is what will help them convince people to abide by the present restrictions and will not necessitate them constantly coming up with threats of even more draconian restrictions in the future.

They did not have a strategy at the beginning of the outbreak and due to that they have been constantly reacting to events and situations. They have been following and not leading.

There has been, in this country and most throughout the world, a ‘social contract’ between governments and the population. Most populations have accepted the restrictions on their movements for weeks and going into months. That ‘social contract’ is two sided. Governments have told us what we cannot do but they rarely talk (and more importantly are able to convince their populations) about what they are going to do.

That is called having a strategy.

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