We should never doubt that the UK government chose that we suffer Covid-19 more than other states.
On February 3rd Boris Johnson gave a speech in Greenwich in which he praised the virtues of growing trade, which he claimed the UK would enjoy after leaving the EU on 31 January. He said:
Trade used to grow at roughly double global GDP — from 1987 to 2007.
Now it barely keeps pace and global growth is itself anaemic and the decline in global poverty is beginning to slow.
And in that context, we are starting to hear some bizarre autarkic rhetoric, when barriers are going up, and when there is a risk that new diseases such as coronavirus will trigger a panic and a desire for market segregation that go beyond what is medically rational to the point of doing real and unnecessary economic damage, then at that moment humanity needs some government somewhere that is willing at least to make the case powerfully for freedom of exchange, some country ready to take off its Clark Kent spectacles and leap into the phone booth and emerge with its cloak flowing as the supercharged champion, of the right of the populations of the earth to buy and sell freely among each other.
And here in Greenwich in the first week of February 2020, I can tell you in all humility that the UK is ready for that role.
Note carefully what he said.
He said he'd make trade and commerce a higher priority than coronavirus.
His dismissed isolation (autarky) as a bizarre reaction to Covid-19.
And he said the UK would stand against what he called such irrationality.
We are paying a massive price for that.
We locked down too late, when far too many already had Covid-19, with which they have now infected their families, amongst others.
Because we locked down too late when too many already had coronavirus our death rate is still rising when in other countries - the USA apart, who suffered this same delayed reaction - it is almost certainly falling and the stats may be reliable, unlike ours.
And Johnson himself got it.
Let's not ever think him some sort of hero for having survived. His beliefs led us to suffer this crisis more severely than we needed. He can't deny it. Those opinions are on record.
He has to be held to account for them now he's getting better and will hopefully make a full recovery.
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it’s nice to see autarky returning to the economic lexicon,
recently I read the wikipedia entry for autarky,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autarky
it’s as if autarky is the antithesis of hyper-globalisation,
if you were to consider Cuba & North Korea to be say 80% autarkic you could equally consider the UK to be 80% globalised,
I’m sure all countries concerned would be much more comfortable if they were 50/50
according to wikipedia autarky is popular with the Left, Conservatives & Nationalists,
one gets the impression Boris is none of the above!
for all of Boris’s bluster about Brexit it is evident that he is just as wedded to the interests of global finance as the Conservative Party has become in recent decades,
‘Fuck Business’ said it all.
In fairness, the consequences of the lockdown are rather horrific too. The Guardian’s just reported it’s caused a massive increase in hunger, with 1.5 million Brits having recently gone a whole day without eating. There’s millions more suffering increased food insecurity and other economic stress, not to mention the rise in physical abuse in stressed out households, mental health issues, and the impact on young peoples education.
With hindsight, it seems likely the UK gov was wrong to move so slowly towards the lockdown, but any reasonable accounting should weigh up the strong arguments for not taking those steps lightly. BJ’s willingness to look at the whole picture was arguably heroic, and this is coming from someone who was out on the streets every weekend leading up to Dec 12th, trying to get Uxbridge voters to chose Ali Milani.
People are not going hungry because of the lockdown
they are going hungry because they have no money
And the government is not helping them
I recognised the other issues but there was nothing heroic at all about Johnson: I sincerely hope he is brought to account for the unnecessary deaths he has caused, most especially amongst NHS staff.
Of course, it is easy to be an armchair critic with no responsibilities and able to use hindsight. The UK locked down slower than some countries, faster than others. Were you advocating a lock-down on February 3rd?
France was still allowing open air markets days after the UK locked down fully. Here in Germany they announced full lockdown on the same day as the UK, Sweden still hasn’t.
Johnson changed his mind when the advice he got (from medical experts) changed- you have on here continually announced changes of opinion “when the facts change, my opinion changes, doesn’t yours?”. You deny this to Johnson?
Your criticism is easy from your comfy position.
And you continue to claim that the UK’s deaths from Coronavirus are vastly understated. You claim some inside information having spoken to ‘medics’.
Let us examine this for a moment. You are claiming that there is a conspiracy by the government. This would involve hundreds if not thousands of individuals. Doctors, nurses, coroners, government officials.
The only people to have broken this conspiracy chose to speak to you.
Why do you not release your ‘evidence’ to the wider media? If you are correct this is a national scandal and extremely dangerous. It should be, it must be released. You are failing in your duty to the public if you do not. Of course, you will mumble something about protecting your sources. They need no protecting, they do not exist.
Of course, it is not true. You have no evidence. With your wild claims of expecting 10,000 deaths a day, and starvation, deliberate government policies to bring these about and now a massive cover up your wild, dangerous and misleading allegations belong with those of Vladimir Terziski and your David Icke.
There is no conspiracy by doctors or NHS staff
They know the facts – and are yelling ad shouting about them
They are gagged
I have provided my evidence
And you are just a troll
The evidence of just how different things could have been is being piled up daily by New Zealand – and not just by an early and comprehensive lockdown. Their current figures for testing (a crude measure as its effectiveness is also hugely enhanced by the contact tracing on which theJohnson regime has clearly all but given up) is equivalent to 1.22% of the entire population – almost three times the level across the whole UK (0.46%). Also take a look at their government’s exmplary website for levels and details of information and transparency which make the Johnson government’s opacity and evasion stand out in shocking contrast. It even has an automatic enquiry as to whether the website has answered your information need in consulting it. Find it athttps://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-current-situation/covid-19-current-cases
Thanks
Dr Gruber
Could I ask you to consider that this is not purely a question of how fast the UK reacted to the threat? For me , it is about what we were able to react WITH when we did? My understanding is that in 2016 the Conservatives were advised to prepare for such an eventuality as we find ourselves in today and poo-pooed it.
Being late is one thing Dr Gruber, but not having the capacity when you do act – the testing capacity, ventilator capacity, PPE capacity and an already weakened health service is not only a glaring lack of intelligence on the Conservative governments behalf, but is also a criminal act. I wonder if when in 2012 the Conservatives did their Health Care Act (where many felt that it was just a ruse to get the Secretary of State to squirm out of any responsibility for Government decisions) they had considered any of this?
I think the Tories felt that they could manage the decline of the NHS nicely and slowly until it was fully privatised by stealth without taking into consideration something like Covid-19.
Covid-19 for all its awfulness may have one positive aspect in that it has reified just how badly set up the NHS is across the board. It has brought the consequences forward. It also shreds Tory immigration policy and BREXIT.
As I’ve said elsewhere, if HM Opposition cannot work together to create a day of reckoning for the Tories on (for example) hospital staff being unable to protect themselves from infection whilst trying to look after the afflicted (I ask you!!!), then I can only say that politics and justice no longer exist in this country. We’re finished.
There’s a good interview with John Pilger on RT’s Going Underground about Exercise Sygnis the 2016 pandemic modelling in London which showed just how unprepared the NHS was to deal with a pandemic. Needless to say the report was hidden and ignored. Criminal is the word for it.
For keyboard warrior Gruber:-
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/10/doctor-johnson-thousands-deaths-nhs-patient
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/11/us-institute-revises-down-forecast-for-uk-coronavirus-death
Great to see you – not just Paul Mason – highlighting that deranged speech.
The hubris and hyperbole was farcical and, like the bombastic location, seemed more the stuff of Gilbert and Sullivan than the politics or the economics of our own times but….. as my favourite quote from Willy Firschauer has it… “The thing that worries me about these poltiticans” (he was discussing the allegedly ‘new’ Nixon) “is that they actually mean what they say.” Never was that more true. Johnson has turned out to be exactly – and in the real world – as deranged as his rhetoric, and accordingly lethal.
The attempt – so far disturbingly successful, aided by a criminally incurious MSM – to whitewash this lethal PM and his government and its party (which has been entirely responsible for the hollowed out unreadiness of the otherwise heroic NHS) is, after the pandemic itself, the most frightening aspect of the ‘U’ K at present. Accorded virtual ‘Messiah’ status by The Sun, which seems to have turned from mere mendacity to blasphemy, Johnson and his ministerial nodding dogs look likely to continue being given a ‘free pass’ by a supine Press and a feeble Media at the government’s daily cover-up ‘briefings’.
We need a new (and actually more truthful!) “Guilty Men” special to be published and/or broadcast. They have been in charge and careless of people’s lives. There must be a reckoning – and in the meantime we need the MSM to get off their knees and pursue the guilty.
What we need for this lot is another Nuremberg. I’m pleased to see ‘Johnson’ and ‘deranged’ increasingly being used in connection with each other as I have long held what Boris most needs is diagnosis.
Sycophantic media has now delivered us Raabble Land!
Are you suggesting we go into full lockdown until a vaccine is found? That is the obvious way to minimise the loss of life?
The other “utilitarian” approach is to say most of us will get it, some will die, most won’t let’s live with it do lockdown/ social distancing is necessary so the health services aren’t swamped at any particular time.
The problem with the first approach is people in Britain just won’t accept lockdown.
They have accepted lockdown
When, as Johnson claimed. the science changed it was the behavioural science: he had to suddenly realise that this indifference to peoples’ granny was unacceptable to them
It still is
You are wrong
Sorry – so you are saying years of shut down?
The ebola vaccine took 5 years. And if covid is a live vaccine I doubt we could give it to the vulnerable or immune compromised anyway.
Some time yet, yes….
“They have accepted lockdown”
We haven’t had a full lockdown by any stretch. And Britain won’t accept a full lockdown of any kind until a vaccine is found.
So they will accept many, many thousands of deaths?
“ So they will accept many, many thousands of deaths?”
Yes they will, sadly. It’s like driving a car each day. There is guaranteed to be a certain number of deaths, do rationally we shouldn’t drive but we do. This is the same. The vulnerable and the old might choose to full lockdown until a vaccine.
I am of an age btw where I will stay in lockdown, but the majority of the young healthy population won’t. I think the Government know this. The key is keeping a pattern of behaviour which doesn’t overrun the NHS
The last is why we will stay in lockdown
We don’t need a full lockdown until a vaccine is made. But we do need a lockdown to reset the number of people who have the virus. And that will take a long time due to the massive reservoir now in the country in hundreds of thousands of houses that will take weeks to clear. For now people will continue passing the virus to other family members and housemates even if they don’t leave the house. That is the long lasting devastating legacy of the tories attempt at herd immunity.
And then just as we see in South Korea, what we need is everyone wearing face masks in public (not surgical rated ones, home made will do). And we need full track and trace to limit community transmission. Also if people travel here from places with the virus they should be quarantined.
Currently of the 3 things I just listed that we should be doing we are doing none. The Tory approach has been awful for number of people suffering and dying and awful for the economy.
It is possibly to keep R0 below 1 without a lockdown, so we clearly don’t need to be on full lockdown until a vaccine is made.
R0 is thought by some Serious commentators to be at 5 now
I am now sure your theory stacks
Unfortunately I do think that some people will become frustrated with an extended lockdown, especially if it is a warm and dry summer.
The Police don’t have the resources to enforce a lockdown if a growing number decide they have had enough.
That doesn’t mean I personally agree with ignoring it.
Where I live there was no applause for the health service, and people are still visiting friends and family and making unessecary journeys.
South Korea got hit hard early on and since then their number of cases has been going down without a full lockdown which shows they have got R0 below 1. Maybe we can’t do quite the same here, but we can get it under control without permanent lockdown until vaccine.
How?
Of course lockdown till the vaccine’s the suggestion. Nothing else will work. I’m sure the govt are as aware of that as anyone, they’re just scared of having to explain it. Mind, the food riots will be starting in short order so while lockdown will need to continue there’s not much chance of it continuing quite as it is. .. I imagine the police will soon be thrilled to see lockdown-breakers amiably sunbathing as opposed to steaming their local Tesco.
There is no guarantee that a vaccine can be produced so a lockdown end date premised on that event is a non starter.
So what are you suggesting?
I guess what will have to happen is some kind of phased approach to ending lockdown. Maybe by age or geographic area depending on local transmission with a continuing ban on big events and protection for the most vulnerable. Along with mass antibody testing, as soon as it can be done sufficiently accurately.
A good study is being done on transmission at the population level in a town in Germany, results out next week which should inform how we go about this. I have no doubt we will be in lockdown until late May at the earliest. Hopefully realistic planning is being done in the interim to bring us out.
I think you’d optimistic….
I hope you’re right
It will definitely by gradual
Sport, and large events are a long way off
Some more normal work and shopping closer
With respect though Johnson was hardly alone in his view. The question is what do we (the world) do about it? Are we talking some sort of a deglobalisation process?
It may be that speech is the high watermark of naive globalisation. But I’m not sure I understand what the prescription is. Accountability is important but it is neither a route forward nor an exit strategy.
Johnson was the cheerleader
He still is
Brexit is still not delayed and will be catastrophic
And globalisation is undoubtedly going to happen: resilience demands it
The idea that we can be so import-dependent will not be tolerated again
A whole new strategy for resilience is demanded. This is one aspect of it
With you on the resilience bit totally. But what I’m still not clear about is what anyone thinks that should look like. To be clear I’m not saying I have any answer.
But I’m just a bit worried that ‘resilience’ will become one of those things that everyone thinks is a good idea but no one does anything about.
On your 5th line should that be DEglobslisation will undoubtedly….
Agreed!
Hand Grubber…Lord Peter Flints adversary in the Warlord comics of the late 70’s/early 80’s…surely a jest worthy of the man himself!
I have sought to see if he is any of the other trolls who has appeared here
I strongly suspect this person is not a German doctor
Here’s other stuff he’s said 🙂
https://www.cbr.com/hans-gruber-quotes-die-hard/
Off-G are usung the Swiss Propaganda Researchers
https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/
to complain about ‘overstating’ reported fatalities. My arguments that this a new thing not the same as anothet flu/cold strain arriving in populations where there is herd immunity of sorts from previous infections or vaccines is being swamped or even censored by their mods.
I had posted links to modelling which was showing today (11th) as being the peak hospitalisations based on when the lockdown happened. With anoyher 40 days of similar lockdown aand a rolling let out to work a few days with immediate self isolation for 10 days to keep herd immunity spreading withou overwhelming the hospitals.
But they will keep insisting that ot’s a con and to let people (culnerable/old die much sooner so they can keep making money (working).
One of my buds who works usually making boat and car covers, pub brollies and the like, who was furloughed, has been called urgently back in. The demand now is for body bags, lots of them and quickly too. Endless 7-day weeks lie ahead.
The situation becomes more gruesome by the day.
I am sure that is true
As a non-medic but reasonably well read and mathematically literate observer, I would have thought that the model of success is clear:
– lock down early to cut the spread, reducing the load on health services and the death rate
– have a health service that is already resourced to allow it to respond quickly to peaks rather than being permanently overloaded (beds, staff, ventilators, PPE)
– get testing up and running ASAP in high volumes so that you have good data on where and how fast COVID is spreading and who has had it and may be immune
– put in place some form of tracking so you know who has it and where they are (maybe the most controversial)
– be transparent with the public so they know how serious it is and what they need to do with no ambivalence or duplicity
With this approach, it is possible that lock down can be progressively relaxed early. Without it, any relaxation of lock down is likely to lead to a resurgence of cases. Vaccines and drugs will be a while yet, so being able to relax lock-down in a ‘controlled’ manner is essential for society as well as for the economy.
The government has failed to do any of the above, or has been very slow to respond. Permanently behind the curve for reasons of ideology and incompetence. The countries that have had some success (no-one is perfect) have done most or all of the above. Im happy to be corrected on errors or omissions.
There has to be a detailed public enquiry in the not too distant future, not just to hold the government to account, but so lessons can be learned and actions taken to ensure this does not happen again. Sweeping it under the carpet as Johnson’s gang will want to do must not be allowed to happen
Agreed Robin
Concerns about people being squeamish using the tracking are probably a bit of a red herring. I think most would accept we are at that point now. Similarly most people I guess use ‘phones fully aware they can be used for tracking movement. Many people use online payment that can be used to track movement.
The bigger issue for me is ‘mission creep.’ So we can track covid – why not other things? Tracking may not even be a bad thing of course.
The tech to do all this isn’t all that new or even controversial per se and I’d be happy to use it personally. But I do worry a door is being opened here. Would for example we lock people out of the tracking app and the access it brings as a punishment?
But if Google tracks you all the time – and it does – what is different?
If you have a phone you have already abandoned your rights….
That’s precisely the point I was trying to make to ‘Dr Gruber’ above. We can all get caught in the headlights at times, react a bit slowly and then scramble like mad to catch up.
The trouble is that after nearly 10 years of State hating Tory rule, our hollowed out little country has too little to scramble with. There was no/is no resilience, not much strength in depth.
Shall we take bets now on the Tories ramping up their efforts to further privatise the NHS on the basis that ‘it could not cope with the virus’ after all this is over? I wouldn’t put it past them.
I am hoping that somewhere, some legal eagle is now busy preparing to take the SoS for Health to court for effectively killing people.
And let us not forget the contributions of David Cameron, Nick Clegg, George Osbourne, Jeremy Hunt and Andrew Lansley to this debacle. They are all culpable and we need a good select committee to draw them over the coals and much worse. There is a form of criminal neglect afoot here that must not be hidden behind the sovereignty of Parliament.
Lock down initially was justified (ignoring the obvious and almost criminal lack of government pandemic contingency planning, involving international cooperation).
The main point has to be the subsequent assessment of lives lost from a choice of strategy. If in our democratic system this leads to a political solution as the governing party fears the backlash then the safest option remains the obvious. Safest for the governing party but not for the public who will suffer by multiple degree more death and hardship from economic disaster.
Sweden in my opinion has the answer more or less right. The reason it states for its policy of keeping society open is open to debate but the product of herd immunity will nonetheless be achieved.
Pursuing the current strategy of lock down until a vaccine is found is irrational. Isolate the vulnerable and release the lock down by stages.
Chris Judd Cambridge
And if we have up to ten waves of the infection? As Sweden will, as well?
The ‘experts’ are not of single mind. In India and Sweden a contra view has been stated. An additional point I have noted from this blog is Brexit being mentioned. Could it be those in a more comfortable position, able to work from home, with money in the bank are more agreeable to lock down? I maintain my democratic right to debate and have debated what I perceive as a probable distastrous error of judgement. Whether that error is routed in academic folly or political expedience is another matter. As the consequences are huge and as in all other matters the government is challenged as being inadequate why are we just sitting back having our freedoms restricted when there is a better, viable alternative.
Chris
What price your ‘better’?
Your do nothing, gung ho, herd immunity approach is what has led the UK to have the highest casualty rates in Europe. Sweden is not looking good either.
See my earlier post. Its just what the successful countries have done and the UK has failed dismally
—————————————–
— lock down early to cut the spread, reducing the load on health services and the death rate
— have a health service that is already resourced to allow it to respond quickly to peaks rather than being permanently overloaded (beds, staff, ventilators, PPE)
— get testing up and running ASAP in high volumes so that you have good data on where and how fast COVID is spreading and who has had it and may be immune
— put in place some form of tracking so you know who has it and where they are (maybe the most controversial)
— be transparent with the public so they know how serious it is and what they need to do with no ambivalence or duplicity
With this approach, it is possible that lock down can be progressively relaxed early. Without it, any relaxation of lock down is likely to lead to a resurgence of cases. and overwhelming of finite health resources. Vaccines and drugs will be a while yet, so being able to relax lock-down in a ‘controlled’ manner is essential for society as well as for the economy.
I agree with you Robin
Chris Judd either mischievously or inadvertently compares apples with oranges. Sweden is nato’s b****.
To put it more rigourosly and rationally the Swedish population is only 10 million. The UK nearly 70 million.
To put it totally clearly for such nonsense that can be in the future allowed to be used as an excuse by the tory government ‘but Sweden did it and they were ok’ – the UK population density is 281 per Km2 (727 people per mi2). The Swedish?
The population density in Sweden is 25 per Km2 (64 people per mi2).
https://www.worldometers.info/population/europe/northern-europe/
A very important factor i’d say.
Such crap is abroad on the boards and even supposedly alt-news sites over this weekend. Such facts I venture are censored on the Off-G site. The narrative manufacturers and gate keeepers are in full flow!
Btw Chris , not having a go , but the Swedish canard must be shot! They are not immune or special.
It was a political decision by them not an expert scientific one via the same Atlantist Robber Baronial anti EU camp that informed Bozo and UK’s.
The 500 allowed gathering dropped to 50 and will soon be ZERO, just like the rest of the sensible EU – based on the very sensible Europan CDC organisation.
The politicians in Sweden will probably pay the price with their careers sooner than our privatising brexiteering callous scumbags.
The Swedish experts are getting traction finally and shooting down the lame duck ‘let herd immunity take care if it’ mentality as children and young people as well as elderly and vulnerable die.
https://forbetterscience.com/2020/04/07/swedish-scientists-call-for-evidence-based-policy-on-covid-19/
Stay rational and don’t let wishful thinking now be the regret of the rest of your life (that is for everyone inc ME).
Just as with economists, politicians are inclined to listen to the ‘scientists’ who tell them what they want to hear. Even if they are in a small minority amongst their peers
I respect difference of opinion and perception. Save as to say I do not agree with the certainty of the lock down camp’s side. We could argue here at virtual infinitude but my research tends me one way yours another. assumptions you make are just that and never is that more self evident than in comments made linking Brexit with right wing privitisation. Let’s do us all a favour and leave Brexit out of this debate.
facts like the newspapers we read are chosen and adopted to suit. we have the Oxford university model on one hand and the Imperial College on the other.
Just contemplate if we continue lock down the economic effects on new hospitals, cancer treatments, depression, suicide. It took the UK decades to pay back out war time debt. Yes we will survive but it is my and those who argue for a more vigorous urgent debate it may not be necessary.
I think more than anything as this lock down is such a drastic restriction on our lives we deserve to have access to the same facts as the government has and a peoples body created to advise in an independent (none political) manner. This may not be possible with this virus but must be put in place for the future.
Chris
Let’s be clear that we cannot leave Brexit out of this debate: it reflected a mindset and so do coronavirus decisions
And if you’ve not come across her, check out Prof Devi Sridhar – excellent and fortunately starting to get more attention
Thanks
Just looked on Twitter
Very good
Now following her