The government gave up doing daily press conferences on the coronavirus crisis yesterday.
That is despite the fact that the death rate is higher than when we locked down.
In which case the claim that we are now following the science no longer stacks. All it actually says is that the strain on the scientists - even the tame ones in search of gongs - has begun to show too much.
Whilst the government's claim that their plan is working is palpably a false.
And worse, this is happening before the true economic impact of coronavirus has yet to hit.
Whilst the redundancies of those who have been furloughed have yet to really start.
And the business failures as it becomes apparent that many businesses have nothing like the resources that they now need to reopen have not begun.
In addition, the massive losses on the loans already made to business have yet to crystallise.
On top of which, the failure to secure the option of turning those loans into equity stakes so that businesses had a greater chance of surviving this has not yet been appreciated.
Meanwhile, the demand for additional government spending to get us through this has not yet dawned on the Governor of the Bank of England.
And the risks of a second wave of coronavirus appear to be almost wholly unappreciated, most especially by the young who think themselves immune to all this, but it's not their money that keeps so much in society going. I rather strongly suspect those who I might politely call more mature won't be going anywhere near a pub or restaurant for some time yet, and for very good reason.
Yet the government has stopped doing daily press conferences.
And that's a bit like saying that Dunkirk was a victory and after that there was nothing much to talk about in the war that followed because everything was inevitable thereafter.
Except it wasn't.
And there is nothing that is in any way certain now. Barring, I suspect, that what the government is doing now is hopelessly inappropriately timed, because everything else that they have done has been, and on this occasion I am not even willing to presume that once in a while they will, by accident, get things right.
So, what now?
Don't breathe easy.
Don't be fooled by the summer sun and that the chance to meet outside is the solution to all coronavirus problems. We know neither will last.
And come September, which is only ten weeks away, when schools and the mass seasonal internal migration of the student population begins again, so too will autumn, and the evidence is pretty compelling that coronavirus likes the cold and the damp. So let's presume it does.
What then? What is the plan for another outbreak?
Is it that this time it will be let rip? Will it be that the 86% of those in care homes who survived this wave will face the next one with the same indifference from the government that they have now got used to? Or will it be that this will now spread much more widely amongst the population and the outbreak will be much worse second time around, as was the case with the Spanish flu?
If so, has anyone got the slightest idea how this will be managed?
Or how the anger will be contained? Because I cannot help but think that next time people will not be so tolerant of the incompetence we've seen. Next time they're not going to feel we're all in this together. And that we must suffer for the common good.
Instead I suspect that next time they're going to say the plans should have been in place.
And the track and trace systems should work.
Whilst the job guarantee should have been thought out.
And the business support mechanisms should be planned, and not ad hoc.
Or maybe, even, they might expect some honesty on our ability to survive this only if we fundamentally change our understanding of government, and its financing. They might even think that this should have been the subject of a prior information campaign so that the confidence that knowing this might provide could be in place in advance of the need when it will be patently obvious that the second wave will account for many more jobs.
However, I note none of that happening. All I can see is ministers saying ‘let go all safeguards' with mighty big fingers crossed behind their backs, and a statement that they have no intention of being accountable any more.
And somehow I just cannot see people buying that next time. They'll forgive once. But twice, most especially if, as has become normal, we're worse than everyone else? I just don't see that.
But as worryingly, nor do I see an Opposition preparing itself to say any of these things either, so that it might be willing and able to take over leadership if required when and if this government falls.
I am, overall, an optimist, with a tendency to anticipate downsides. But optimism is justified only in the event of it being reasonable to think there is a way through a situation. Right now we know that the likelihood of a second wave of coronavirus is significant. And if anyone in government is talking about it I've not heard.
That gives me no cause for optimism at all. July 4 is not liberation day. I might risk a haircut if everyone is masked. But more than that? Why? The likelihood that a great deal might still go wrong seems extraordinarily high. And that gives me no sense of liberation at all. All I suspect is that next time it will be worse.
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So what you’re saying is that we’re basically on our own and you didn’t even get round to Brexit or Climate Change. Say what you like about Corbyn but he did oppose. The problem was that he was opposing 600 other MPs. Now they all seem to be on the same side. Utterly pathetic.
I did not see Corbyn oppose
He supported the economic status quo and the neoliberal agenda plus austerity with his fiscal rule
He spent four years at PMQs banging on about the NHS and all the media could say was can’t he find something else to talk about. Well, we’ve seen how underfunded and badly prepared the NHS were and we’re seeing the effects of creeping privatisation. I want to see a big clogged up painting with Where’s Starmer on it. Just admit that no one is going to come up to your ideal as a politician and you’re not prepared to take on the job yourself. Sometimes the best is the enemy of the good but I’m buggered as to where Sir Keir fits in here.
With respect, you are getting rather tedious
Whatever we perceive as Corbyn’s fiscal faults opposing austerity was not one of them. He consistently spoke and voted against every austerity measure. He stated many times that poverty was a political imposition, never an economic necessity. Under his term as leader, the Tory government suffered over 40 defeats in the House of Commons, and 37 Government ministers had to resign. To me, this looks like opposition. You cite differences over the understanding of MMT as a prime reason for you withdrawing your input into Labour’s deliberations. As you viewed it as a contentious issue, you were/are right to fight your corner and argue your case. Many on the left support you. Politicians specialise in politicking they are not all equally versed on the History of Economic Thought, Economics or the History of Money. Expect gaps in understanding.
AS I write Russia is celebrating the 75th anniversary of their victory over the Nazis in WW2. The beginning of that conflict caught the Soviet Union entirely off guard. They suffered stupendous losses. The military commanders responded by throwing away their army manuals and reinventing military tactics anew. They quickly learnt how to outfight the enemy.
Meanwhile, the workforce had to dismantle ship and reassemble thousands of factories from western Russia to behind the Urals. All the supporting infrastructure built from scratch. Authority and management distributed throughout the whole population — hence the name The Great Patriotic War.
As hostilities progressed, the Nazis command structure became more autocratic and hierarchical their military adventures more prone to failure. In contrast, as confidence grew, the Soviet Command became more heterarchical — local autonomy. They outfought, outgunned and outgeneraled the foe. The Soviets displayed superior managerial competence.
As one General remarked the best laid military plan rarely survives the opening shot of a battle. Labour’s fiscal rule would have disappeared in like manner. Neither the Unions, the Daganham or Grunwick Ladies, nor the Glasgow school girls would have allowed any repeat of Tory fiscal gang rape. Therefore, not a reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
If Corbyn was opposed to austerity he should not have embraced a fiscal rule that required it and specifically said that the country was ‘maxing out its credit card’
I rest my case
There is no defence that can be offered
It’s not the Government but the Westminster Government you’re referring to here. The actions and results are dependent on which part of the UK you’re talking about. The actions and therefore possible consequences of Westminster’s decisions on Covid19 are a major concern for the other three.
Covid19 deaths announced June 23 –
England: 161
Wales: 5
Scotland: 4
NI: 1
Agreed
I thought you were 99.9% sure you had already had Coronavirus?
I wish you wouldn’t mock people of a shaggy disposition who have not had it, who are taking a small but mitigatable risk getting a haircut in 2 weeks time.
Nothing has yet proved that this gives me immunity for very long
I am presuming that at some point I will be vulnerable again
And that in that case I can become a risk to others again
Is that such a terrible thing to do?
Out here things seem to split into two camps.
The ‘happy go lucky’ bunch who hear Boris being one of the lads and looking forward to his pint and think everything is OK.
Then there are those more sceptical who will not be going back to the pub any time soon. Or to the cinema.
So we’ve been split by BREXIT and a two party system and now we are being split by a reaction to a deadly virus.
Locally responsive testing is what is needed. The Government has given money to LA s to house homeless people and get them off the streets (the report on R4 said that the Government had ‘found’ the money for up to March 2021 – what a joke – ‘found’ my arse) so this proves to me that local management is best.
All they need to do is fund a local testing regime for goodness sake. They could be doing that now, before the flu season comes at the end of this year.
The opposition you say? The majority of the mainstream politicians in the Tory and Labour parties are in my view simply rubbish. The country is being failed.
Here’s the Prime Minister proving you right PSR
https://twitter.com/peterkyle/status/1275440240002396160?s=21
There is no plan should (and most likely, will) occur. Correction – there is a plan and it’s the one this Govt. have been implementing – ‘herd immunity’. It is the intent that a significant enough number of people become infected, that most will survive and on we go towards that distant horizon. I note this morning on R4 from one bright Tory spark that it is up to the people to exercise ‘common sense’ as lockdown restrictions ease. So, if we have a second wave it will be as a result of the people not exercising ‘common sense’. In short, our own fault.
That is the plan….
The estimates are that 5% of the population (perhaps 3 million people) have had coronavirus, based on antibody tests. Even if that underestimates by a factor of two (6 million people) , we have had 60,000 excess deaths from just that 10% of people becoming infected. Oh look, about 1%. So it could easily reach over 500,000 deaths if we just let the virus rip. Mostly people who are poor, old, and/or poorly already. The government won’t say as much in public, but the suspicion must be that at some level there is an acceptance that we should just let these people die.
Another other side of the coin is that around 600,000 people die in the UK every year anyway, and continuing the lock down us likely to adversely affect the lives of many people, including people with other medical conditions who have not been getting the treatment they need.
I very strongly believe that they think a year with 100% excess deaths is fine as there will then be several years with below average deaths – which they will trumpet as a success
The aim is to get them in early and claim the success by 2024
Me, a cynic? You bet
It would not be safe to assume that there will be no long term health implications for the majority of people who catch but then recover from coronavirus.
I suspect there will be an increase in those dying due to lung damage and other impacts, particularly for the many thousands of people who have required hospital treatment. (Those who are symptom free, or recovered at home, are probably ok, but only probably.) So there may be a legacy of excess deaths for a period.
Many of those who have died could have lived happily for many years, and would not otherwise have died in the next four or five. So there will still be the usual baseline of deaths for other reasons.
So it is at all not clear to me that the death statistics will necessarily fall in the next few years. Or even over the summer, if we continue to have 100 deaths from coronavirus per day, on top of the usual run rate of around 1,600 deaths per day.
There were three or even four waves of Spanish flu, two pulses in 1918, and others in 1919 and 1920. This could easily run into 2021 or later.
I agree with all that
Yep.
The boundless negligence and stupidity of the people in charge as well as their obvious indifference to the suffering of thousands upon thousands of people is not provoking a response yet.
This situation highlights not only that the ruling class is amoral and apathetic but also that, if the general public snapped out of their stupor and got angry, there is no mechanism in place to change anything.
Since I don’t have access to the minds of Johnson, Hancock, Sunak et al, I don’t know to what extent it’s arrogant idiocy and to what extent it’s mendacity that drives this crisis.
I’m feeling increasingly nervous about the future.
Additionally, this in the Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/23/no-10-not-sharing-covid-19-data-on-local-outbreaks-say-councils?fbclid=IwAR3AfNDQi_BuFQlwnhRErZVkg1Xx1xgjLDnadXAXwpJwnTKv2fVpqEQta4k
So, local Directors of Public Health are now responsible for management of Covid-19 in their own areas, without the means to do that – access to information about where confirmed cases are.
This is the stuff of farce. Or a Govt. that is determined not to be held accountable for a second wave.
Precisely
Farce?
No!
This is a deadly plan to shift blame that I think will ultimately work.
The mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees was interviewed on the Today program this morning. He advocated essentially the GND and it occurred to me that it was what we should be hearing from the LOTO.
Keir Starmer won’t be pushing for a GND because he knows he’ll be asked how he’s going to pay for it and he hasn’t a clue. Richard Murphy won’t support any LOTO unless he’s a fully paid up member of the MMT gang. This country is going nowhere but down the pan because everybody wants things their own way and no one is prepared to win minor battles. I’m glad I’m 75 and not 25 but I guess I would have more fight in me if I was 25. I was prepared to give Corbyn a chance because he was better than Johnson. I think so many people would prefer to lose if they can’t win on their own terms.
I am more than happy to advise Starmer whether MMT or not
I’m getting bored by your misrepresentations Rod
They’re tedious
I still think the number of deaths in the aftermath of Covid-19 will be much worse than the peak. Undiagnosed cancers, worsening mental health, suicides, lost livelihoods and businesses, long NHS waiting lists, I could go on.
I also very much doubt a high number of people will accept another lockdown.
I will also keep repeating that we still don’t seem to have any stats on how many have died OF Covid-19, how accurate deaths WITH Covid-19 are (think the if you unfortunately die in a road accident and you test positive for Covid-19)
There still no plan for young people, or education, how long will they put up with a future on the scrap heap?
There may never be a vaccine, humans are not programmed to live under lockdown conditions for ever.
I’m one of those ‘mature’ types and I’ve taught myself something now about the means by which c19 spreads, and you’re right, I’m not going near an enclosed space, as you noted, anytime soon. Yes, it does seasonal and 2nd wave (though I hope not) likely coming. Meanwhle the HEI I work at seeking to cut full time posts, and has already thrown hundreds of of the precariat staff into emiseration. All for the want of money. I’m lost of words Richard, it’s just so appallingly unnecessary.
Are you suggesting we remain in lockdown?
I am not
Medics very clearly are
That persuades me
Perhaps there is no opposition because they realise that, if they offered potential solutions, there’s a chance they might actually get elected and then they’d have to take responsibility for clearing up all of the fallout from this. Quite frankly, nobody wants to touch that with a barge pole.
All politicians want that chance
I believe the following reasons are why the government is happy to reduce (not completely drop) the COVID lockdown measures
1. The chance of dying with covid if you are under the age of 50 is a fraction of 1% and if you are under 50 and have no health issues it’s in the order of 100th of 1%. And like others have said this is dying with COVID not OF covid so dying OF covid is even less likely. And those are as a percentages of the people that catch the disease not of the whole population.
2. If we continue to protect people over the age of 50 by having track n trace, extra measures in care homes, or if they take precautions themselves like wearing masks when they shop or washing hands more often after leaving the house etc then the number of cases even among the elderly will be controlled and greatly reduced.
3. If you use the £30k per life year figure that the NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence) uses to determine if treatment is cost effective and assume that 500,000 lives were saved by the lockdown (Imperial College initial worst case estimate of COVID deaths) and each person saved would have lived a further 10 years (this is the average as most lives saved were of the elderly) the total amount worth spending would be £150Bln. Estimates of the reduction in GDP due to lockdown this year is in the order of £200 bln and hence the lockdown is costing more than even the worst case. And the £200 cost doesn’t even begin to estimte the other cost associated with loss of non-economic benefits…. see https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/06/23/185-billion-reasons-no-politician-should-consider-lockdown/
These are the reasons why the government wants to ease lockdown now. Also as we all know when a politician says something in public he is trying to influence others. When the daily calls started they were put in place to reassure people that the government was in control and doing something alongside scientists. Now the number of cases is much reduced and we want to reduce the amount of harm to the economy the removal of the calls is designed to reassure people that the emergency is over and that they can carry on with life as normal and hence help to bring the economy back to life and hence get people back to work and earning money and having a good, productive life.
If as Richard says the “Medics very clearly are” in favour of the lockdown continuing, can they show where they have done a cost benefit analysis of the effect on peoples lives, education, jobs etc? I would imagine they have looked at the situation purely from a medical perspective. The governments job is to take that into account but also take other aspects into account and I think that’s what they’ve done.
Am I meant to take seriously an analysis from someone who seems to think all people over 50 don’t matter and mainly live in care homes?
Your callousness is noted and is profoundly unwelcome here
I was hoping we could have a discussion about facts and ideas without resorting to name calling (“callous”). I myself am over the age of 50 so I’m hardly likely to be biased against people of that age. I’m simply looking at the stats and suggesting sensible ways in which we can have a balanced response to COVID. With effective precautions for the most vulnerable (not there yet perhaps) and an effective track and trace process (not there yet and not necessarily an app but that would make it even better) I believe the risk to life can be minimised whilst finding a way out of the lockdown to allow normal life to return.
I wasn’t name calling
Cost benefit analysis is callous, be design
It reduces life to pounds
And like all accounting. / economics of the sort ignores externalities to achieve its goal
There is no discussion to be had if you believe it of worth
It isn’t in the way you are using it – not least because if can deliver any answer you might wish for
We would not need lock down in the way we have had the Tories instituted and financially enabled local testing.
It really is as simple as that.
Everyone with a vested interest, typically in business understands “the science” (singular and indisputable), and knows that there is no scientific evidence that contradicts their interpretation of the science. Everyone is an expert. Merely by coincidence their business interests and ‘the science’ are in complete harmony. These apologists have now set themselves up also as providing the only legitimate scientific solutions, weighed all the risks and know what to do; for everyone else. Caution about a virus which is still new to ‘the science’, and about which real knowledge is still being acquired and assessed, or even understood, is irresponsible. This is where we are.
I trust they will provide a guarantee to the whole country that if this goes wrong, they will take full responsibility; individually.
There are people running businesses in Scotland which are currently closed, who are now loudly claiming that because the equivalent businesses are open in England (or that some foolish people in Scotland can always be found who flout the general rules), this means England represents the only scientific ‘truth’ and the businesses are being prevented from opening in Scotland purely because of (by implication malign) politics. They are thus – in effect – setting up Boris Johnson’s government as the gold standard for pandemic management.
That is where we are in Britain now. Heaven help us.