The government knows it is going to kill people, and is carrying on with its democide anyway

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As The Independent reported yesterday:

Another surge in coronavirus cases in the UK is inevitable and could hit in late summer, despite the success of the country's ongoing vaccine rollout, MPs have been told.

Professor Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, said that even under the most optimistic set of assumptions, a further 30,000 lives could be lost to Covid-19, as he warned against the dangers of lifting restrictions too quickly.

Modelling suggests “that at some point we will get a surge in virus”, he told the Science and Technology Select Committee.

Four thoughts.

First, it is good to have someone try to tell something like the truth. This is what the NHS is expecting.

Second, as he warned, this could also be sooner and bigger unless great care is taken, and right now there are few indications that this care is going to be taken.

Third, all those who are confidently predicting economic recovery on the basis that this crisis is over need take note: it is not, and I suspect not by a long way. Unfortunately, there are no apparent economic contingency plans that recognise that.

Fourth, for those who say this is just like flu, no it is not. First, there are actually remarkably few deaths attributed by doctors to flu. That data is retrospectively engineered to suggest a commonality amongst other peaks in deaths revealed by data.

And, such deaths do not happen in summer.

In addition, what flu deaths have is a very common association with deprivation, so the indifference and even casual acceptance of flu deaths reveals a similarly casual indifference to the consequences of poverty and austerity.

And, the predicted deaths are on top of the enormous number that have already happened and despite measures already taken. This is not in any sense normal in that case.

So what describes the events that are going to happen, with what the CMO thinks a fairly high degree of probability in that case? Would a democide be an appropriate term? It seems to be so to me. After all, these are chosen, and innocent, deaths that are the apparently foreseeable consequence of government policy. What other term might be used to describe them?


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