George Monbiot wrote this yesterdaywrote this yesterday, in The Guardian:
We are trapped in a long, dark tunnel, all of whose known exits are blocked. There is no plausible route out of the UK's coronavirus crisis that does not involve mass suffering and death. If, as some newspapers and Conservative MPs insist, the government eases the lockdown while the pandemic is still raging, the eventual death toll could be several times greater than today's. If it doesn't, and we spend all the warm months of the year in confinement, the impact on our mental and physical health, jobs and relationships could be catastrophic.
It's not only well written; it's also uncomfortable because it says what is almost certainly true.
When this virus was spreading exponentially in March I thought it likely that there would be hundreds of thousands of deaths from it in the UK.
I well recall a friend and colleague asking with some incredulity how I could believe that 20,000 people might die as a result of it. I don't think I need to explain now.
I also recall another colleague saying he thought the government had wisely delayed lockdown to allow time for business to prepare for it. I admit I was astonished: virus management doesn't work like that and, as has been proven to be the case, to a large degree delaying lockdown negated the reason for doing it: the genie was out of the bottle by the time we did it.
I also known an epidemiologist who still insists it's all over: he says that all pandemics create a pattern of deaths, including the current decline, that we have now witnessed, and that this one is not a very serious pandemic and the crisis is over. I confess, I do not believe him, whilst hoping he is right: the Spanish flu did not work like that, and his claim that more than 50% of people in London had already had the virus made more than two weeks ago still seems to be unlikely, albeit that I accept that the capital has the lowest infection rate right now.
I offer the contrasts to suggest that I know there is a range of opinion on this issue. No one knows for sure, and the only thing that is certain is that the epidemiologists are at war with each other in ways that I now know only academics can be.
So I make a judgement, and I agree with George Monbiot.
I see no evidence that this pandemic is over.
I do see evidence that the government's model has failed.
As has the Swedish one.
I can see evidence that schools can reopen in Denmark when there was one coronavirus death there one day in the last week. And I can see that we are still suffering one death about every two minutes, and it is apparent that the rate of reinfection has already risen since VE Day. And as a result I seriously wonder how we think it wise to do what they can.
What seems certain to me is that any end to lockdown is going to increase deaths in the UK, considerably. We are simply not going to get through this without a great deal more human suffering as yet. We might want to copy Europe on this, but can't because we have not managed reinfection in the UK in the way that they did: it's as simple as that.
And the suffering To come will not just be from more coronavirus deaths. The knock on physical ill health consequences (from cancer, to reports I am told of about physicians seeing really serious heart complications from untreated heart attacks) and mental ill health consequences, as well as the economic devastation that a largely failed lockdown has brought, have yet to really be counted. But they are real, and will be ongoing.
The time will come when ministers will have to be held to account for what they did. Johnson, most especially, will be accountable.
But right now we have to face an ongoing crisis that I cannot see ending for many months as yet, and with many more dying over that period as a direct or indirect consequence of the failure of our government to tackle this issue on a timely basis.
The talk of ending lockdown to get business ‘back to normal' is just more failure to recognise reality in this context. ‘Normal' has for this country gone for some time to come. This is not a ‘moment' we're living through, where ‘moment' refers to a brief period in time. This is an enduring period of stress. And they always create major change at personal and societal level.
I can hope for best outcomes.
But I know that unless the government is now as enlightened on continuing economic management as it was not when it came to managing the move to lockdown then matters will be very much worse than they need be.
And in that context they have to accept that whatever was can no longer be. Which means, amongst other things, that they accept that the role of government has changed, for good, in favour of government intervention, and that payment for the restoration of capital to those who previously owned it - which is what the demand for increased tax to pay for the crisis represents - is a call that has to be ignored.
We have many issues to face now. Restoring what was already broken is not one of them. We have to move on and face what is to come. Seeking to maintain what out us into this mess is the last thing we need on our agenda now. Those who think otherwise have to be told, very politely, that their day is done.
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I like your last three paragraphs but I’m not sure that this bunch of politicians are up to that level of thinking. I’m pretty certain that the opposition are pretty rubbish too so it’s going to be a long painful slog as they try to reconstruct the status quo ante. The last thing politicians will do is go against the grain of their own instincts and for a large proportion of the 650 MPs neoliberalism is all they know.
Do you believe the evidence that washing your hands for 20 seconds in soapy water makes a difference, that some direct sunlight is good for the immune system, and that the old are overwhelmingly the most vulnerable and children the least?
I’m all in favour of daring alternative thinking and scientific skepticism, but favouring Monbiot over your epidemiological friend because he’s a nice guy is hardly alternative.
Many epidemiologists do not agree with my epidemiologist friend, who is also a nice guy
I worked as a research physicist and all I can say is that scientists spend all their time arguing. Thomas Kuhn’s book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a good read and the change in scientific paradigms happens as the old guard die out and the new guard take over. I think he quotes Planck in saying science progresses one funeral at a time. I need to reread that book; it may be relevant to the change in economic paradigms. If he’s right Keynes died much too soon.
May I suggest that you read Feyerabend instead of re-reading Kuhn? Feyerabend is probably the mot brilliant (if eventually OTT) philosopher of the twentieth century; and Popper’s nemesis.
Paul Feyerabend ‘Against Method’ (1975); preferably the first edition if you can find it; more restrained I think, but that is a personal preference.
“I thought it likely that there would be hundreds of thousands of deaths from it in the UK.”
Seems you were wrong about that.
“I well recall a friend and colleague asking with some incredulity how I could believe that 20,000 people might die as a result of it”
Your friend had obviously not read anything about the virus as even the most optimistic government figures were talking around those numbers. He also obviously knew nothing about the ‘normal’ run of the mill flu which killed as many as 28,000 people as recently as the winter of 2014-15. Why use a friend who obviously knew nothing as a counter-point to suggest you knew what you were talking about?
“I also known an epidemiologist who still insists it’s all over: he says that all pandemics create a pattern of deaths, including the current decline, that we have now witnessed, and that this one is not a very serious pandemic and the crisis is over. I confess, I do not believe him”
Why would you believe an expert in the field when you know everything? Besides, anyone with an opinion different from yours is probably a neoliberal troll anyway.
“I do see evidence that the government’s model has failed.
As has the Swedish one.”
All the experts I have heard have said it is simply far too early to tell and that the true impact of this virus and the success or failure of different approaches won’t truly be known until at the earliest this time next year but, as mentioned, why listen to those who have spent their whole career in this field when you know everything?
“it is apparent that the rate of reinfection has already risen since VE Day.”
No it isn’t. There have been isolated reports of spikes which are statistically irrelevant and which those centres themselves have said may or may not have anything to do with the VE day celebrations.
In other words, stop pretending you know anything more about the current situation than anyone else and admit that all you are doing is trawling the internet for worst case scenarios and then presenting them as outpourings of your knowledge. Your knee-jerk response is simply that whatever the government has done is wrong and will lead to apocalyptic disaster. You’ve predicted 10,000 deaths a day, starvation, 250,000 excess deaths and a myriad of economic disasters your answer to which is government appropriation and increased government control and scrutiny and public disclosure of information to satisfy your prurient interest in other people’s affairs.
Thank goodness no-one with any power takes any notice of you.
You’re entitled to disagree with me
But I offered a balanced appraisal of the evidence
And I have read a lot of it
And the R rate has increased since VE day – the evidence is very strong and admitted
So, very politely I’d suggest that if you come here again you come with facts and not stupid comment, including the self-contradicting claim that no one notices me: you very clearly did and were worried enough to argue with me, without any evidence offered for doing so
@Gary
Aside from all your ad hominem attacks against RM
> All the experts I have heard have said it is simply far too early to tell and that the true impact of this virus and the success or failure of different approaches won’t truly be known until at the earliest this time next year
Erm, just had a quick check on a COVID 19 tracker. The official UK (predomiantly England) stats say that we have racked up ~10% of the global death rate so far. 10%! This is a damning statistic whichever way we look at it.
view from my armchair ( I’m retired so as long as the pension hits the bank account I’ll not be trying to find paid work when we get back up and running ) I have a real hope that we don’t go back to ‘Normal’ at all. Seems that this pandemic has exposed many flaws in how the UK works – or really it doesn’t for the ordinary citizen. Supply chains of various goods are fragile. We don’t make enough stuff. e.g. chemicals for doing the tests. We have the labs and machinery but apparently import the chemicals. One can only guess how that’s impeded us.
We already know too many people are living precariously on the edge of financial disaster.
Transport needs re-thinking.
Richard you’ve pointed me and others to think about so many facets of our lives critically. As a populace we simply cannot allow the politicians to settle down into the old ruts. We need to make new roads. Sadly I’m wondering if I have enough life left to see it. Although normally we need much time and effort to change, see how quickly the health system has made changes in order to cope. We’re not so dumb and slow after all.
I’m going to keep fighting for change to my very last….
In January 2016 the EU announced that it was implementing anti tax evasion legislation to come into force in 2019.
The people and institutions that for years had benefited from lax regulation could not let that happen.
Everything that has happened since flows from there. Brexit, government sleaze and incompetence, the orchestrated demonisation of Corbyn.
I have just finished watching a rerun of the wonderful Judge John Deed series on the Drama channel ( final episode aired last night).
The series covered Martin Shaw’s character battling government sleaze and corruption, mobile phone masts causing disease, birth defects caused by industrial waste, hunt sabotage and corporate manslaughter caused by a death on a reality TV show.
The point I’m belatedly trying to make is, when the series was made, 100% of the population stood behind the campaigning judge.
Now I’m afraid that figure maybe less than 50%.
One final thought.
Subliminal advertising or brainwashing the public by subliminal means, while legal in the USA, is very much illegal in the UK if there are any Judge Deed type crusaders in the legal profession.
One of the fascinating and rather worrying things I have heard today is that the Tories deliberately protected the NHS (which it had undermined over 10 years) by sending untested elderly folk back into care homes from hospitals. This what I was reading in the Guardian at 08:06 this morning:
“Robert Buckland: policy was to protect NHS ahead of care homes
On Sky News, the justice secretary Robert Buckland confirmed that government policy was to protect the NHS ahead of care homes due to the limited testing capacity available in March and April.
Asked by Kay Burley whether the government focused on the NHS “to the detriment of care homes,” Buckland said:
I think we needed to make a choice about testing and we did decide to focus upon the NHS. The issue with care homes is that we’ve got many thousands of different providers, different settings, there have been lots of examples of care homes that have mercifully stayed infection free, but sadly far too many cases of infection and then death.
Pointing out that deaths in care homes represented 40.4% of all coronavirus fatalities in England and Wales in the week to 1 May, Burley again asked Buckland to confirm that government policy was to protect the NHS first and foremost.
He replied: “That’s right and I think that was essential. Now is not the time to blame people, I think that would be wholly counter productive.”
Personally I think that this is absolutely disgraceful admission and does not seem to have been picked up by the media much at all. The Government just forgot about the care homes and the staff running them – left them to fend for themselves. This is absolutely outrageous behaviour and we are lucky NOT to have hundreds of thousands of victims as Richard suggested.
But what does it tell us of our attitude to the elderly?!!!! We’re all going to get old for God’s sake? No one likes to get old and infirm and its frightening but I’m really worried about our attitude – I mean we should be in uproar about this because by focussing on the NHS (in order that the damage the Tories have done to it is not revealed) a death sentence has been passed on elderly vulnerable people. It’s tantamount to mass manslaughter – it really is.
Senicide (or geronticide) – like decisions have been taken by this Government and it’s appalling. And yet all I’ve heard on the news since I’ve got home is Rolls Royce’s job cull, and how the blame game is starting between the scientist and the politicians.
England is no country for old men and women – that is for sure. We ought to be ashamed. And I want some one’s blood for this – I really do. This is a new low even after 10 years of austerity.
I have no doubt the elderly were, as Cummings always said would be the case, were left to die
I agree with you and George Monbiot
As for those responsible being told very politely…I think the time will come when people who’ve suffered the most will not feel politeness is a priority.
There’s a whole generation of youngsters who will have no jobs, no future, and I personally hope they will firmly tell them to clear off where they belong.
There’s a whole generation of people in care homes who traditionally voted for them, who might finally understand that they’re lethal.
We’re expecting a wave here, in Ceredigion, once lockdown ends.
We have the highest number of pensioners in Wales, some of them very vulnerable.
They’ve been shielded till now, but as the Summer approaches, and if the university reopens later, we will be very badly hit as we’ve had very few cases, so have hardly any immune people around us…assuming one is immune once infected, which we’re not totally sure about yet, at least in the medium to long term.
I’ve watched how other countries, with competent leaders, have set up a testing/tracking/isolating system for the new clusters which will invariably develop for months, if not years, to come.
We are totally inept compared to those. Our systems, if they exist at all, are far too centralised. They’re incapable of quick responses which are essential. They’re impractical, inefficient.
We’re in an absolute mess.
And I didn’t even mention Brexit.
Dog walk, I think.
George Monbiot tells the truth, in that article and in his books. Along with Kate Raworth (of Doughnut fame) he brings progressive views into the sections of the community which are illuminated enough to follow them.
There have been many dark tunnels. The 1918 Spanish flu epidemic. The now forgotten 1957 Asian Flu episode. Hong Kong Flu. Sars. Mers. Comparatively localised epidemics that did not affect Europe an North America but ravaged other nations – Ebola, Zika et al. Are they coming more frequently? Why? Something to do with the impact on the natural environment of modern globalised economic exploitiation of the planet? Nature hitting back? Global warming? An interconnected urbanised world? The antibiotic and auto-immunity crisis? The intensive agrochemical assault on the soil? The arrogance and hubris of humankind? We are confronted by this disease ravaging the world and bringing an economic, social, and political crisis to the global system; we ask what happens in the recovery after. I am aware of nobody asking about the next worldwidew epidemic, and the one after that. Is this the new normal? – humankind ravaged every few years by some mutated virus or bacterium, nations in lockdown, economies laid low, the world system paralysed? Will the next epidemic hit even before we have “recovered” from this one? Perhaps in 5 years time, another epidemic will slither through the populations of the globe, this time maybe selectively taking the young, or the whites, or the males, or the females, just as the current one hits especially the old and vulnerable and BAME sections of the population. Maybe ever more frequent pandemics sweeping the planet will be the new normal. Maybe arrogant and ignorant humanity faces its nemesis. We read in the history books of the Black Death of 1348/9 that took away perhaps half to two thirds of the population of Asia and Europe. What is never embered is that in 1361, the plague revisited England at least, with the same savage virulence, and that plague was endemic in Europe at least right through to the eighteenth century. Whatever happens after the present epidemic is finished (if it finishes), we ought to plan for utterly different environmental conditions. But we probably won’t. And we will not be prepared for the next epidemic that hits, perhaps in 2025, 2030, whenever. There are many dark tunnels ahead – and perhaps one of them has no exit.
Sorry forgot to post the link
https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/company-tax/anti-tax-avoidance-package/anti-tax-avoidance-directive_en
Whatever happened to the precautionary principle? According to Monbiot and others we were ranked no 2 in preparedness. It seems the Govt were told on 11th February that a catastrophe was headed our way. The precautionary principle as interpreted by Johnson required us to wash our hands but to go about our daily business. We washed our hands but the catastrophe struck nonetheless.
It looks like the precautionary principle was intended to ensure the wealth extractors wouldn’t find their own wealth being extracted. The next application of the principle will be the government taking precautions to ensure no one in government gets the blame (just like Blair’s war whitewash) – it’ll be deflected on to civil servants or ordinary citizens for not taking proper “precautions”, followed by ensuring it’s the 99% who “pay for it.”
There can be no back to normal with a lunatic, crash-out Brexit looming. It seems fairly obvious so far that Mr Frost has a brief to be intransigent.