I read a despairing Twitter thread from Prof Christina Pagel last night.
It's despairing because she is clearly placing a marker in the sand to say 'I told you so, and I was right'.
And it is despairing because the consequences of the government getting Covid wrong again, despite the warnings, are so significant.
And it's despairing because the lessons of previous outbreaks have clearly yet to be learned, which by now seems unforgivable.
I am sharing part of that thread. I am missing the documentation by her of why she was right all along - which is long and important because it shows that the right advice is being offered, and ignored. I will instead share the elements on the crisis that we are now in:
I guess I sense Prof Pagel's despair. She knows the truth. It is there to be seen. It obviously needs acting upon, and it isn't. Why not despair at that when people suffer as a result?
It's a bit like watching politicians say that we must repay the national debt when there is absolutely no reason to do so and people will suffer as a result. You know they are wrong. It is glaringly obviously that they are wrong. Why not despair at that as well?
For how long have people got to suffer because of the ignorance of our politicians?
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The fact that case numbers continue to surge ahead – as they have for weeks – demonstrates that the current measures – step 3 plus the current level of vaccinations – are not enough. That puts people’s health at risk.
The turn was around 17 May, probably slightly before. By that stage there were already considerable risks from variants of concern in circulation which should have stopped the Step 3 lock down relaxation. We now have the risk of infection rates putting pressure on the NHS as daily hospitalisations have already doubled from around 100 to over 200.
It is extraordinary that the government refuses to learn the lessons of last year. How many people have their mistakes killed?
Well, cases still surging ahead – daily reported cases over 16,000 for the first time since 6 February.
So that could be another 400 to 800 people still suffering from substantial COVID symptoms affecting their daily life next year. And a similar number yesterday, and more tomorrow. Literally thousands of people suffering from ill health for over a year.
And deaths are up over 50% in the last week, from 66 to 101. Still low numbers, but it could be 150 next week. With four further 50% increases would be 750 by the end of July (or about 100 per day) .
Feels like we are in September, looking forward to October last year. Are the vaccines going to rescue us in time?
I doubt it
I am as worried as you
I take this person really seriously.
Fundamentally it’s lack of recognition about what Covid is by Government and society too.
To use a Star Trek analogy Covid is an organism is like a Klingon space ship and its infamous ‘cloaking device’ that enables it to hide from its enemies right up until the moment of attack and catch Captain Kirk and his crew by surprise.
That’s what it is – that is what has enabled it to jump between species.
With such an organism, how many ‘herd immunities’ can we stand? The longer it is amongst us, the more it will learn about us. It will be competing against us.
We are not just under assault from rapacious internet companies for our data – there’s also a bug out there too after it too!
I’m not despairing about this – I’m just shocked by the ignorance of it all – genuinely aghast.
I mean – we are supposed to be advancing as a species aren’t we?
For fuck’s sake!
I read her Tweet this morning. I was particularly struck by the fact that so little regard is given to the suffering of people who contract the virus, especially those who will develop long Covid. And what further strain will that put on the long suffering NHS?
Exactly. The ONS estimates that at the beginning of May – well into the tail of the last peak, and before infections shot up again – around 1 million people were still suffering symptoms four weeks or more after being infected, and 400,000 still had long COVID symptoms a year after they were first infected, with about half of each group reporting significant impact on their daily life – particularly fatigue, short breath, muscle aches, and difficulty concentrating.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/prevalenceofongoingsymptomsfollowingcoronaviruscovid19infectionintheuk/4june2021
We can safely assume the 4.6m positive tests is a gross underestimate. If we double it, that would be something like 5% of cases still affecting people a year later. That is, another 10,000 positive tests every day at the moment means another 50 people suffering long COVID for a year. Not to mention another 10,000 opportunities for new variants to emerge.
Perhaps the best we can say is that hospitalisations are only increasingly slowing, and deaths are still pretty flat. Compared to last September, cases have reached the end of the month, but hospitalisations are around the 13th, and deaths are around the 1st.
Think too of the effects this will have on social seceurity and how the DWP will be preparing to deny any such thing as Long Covid could ever exist. Think of the human misery and suffering we’re about to witness.
It is not the politicians who are deciding this – it’s their puppet masters. The likes of the giant brained unelected psychopath ‘evil lying cheating geniuses’ such as Cummings- who is leading the distraction circus at the moment.
It’s the civil servants who could strike and have abandoned all semblance of public duty in favour of the revolving door to promised riches and not risk expulsion from the cosy nest.
It’s the controlled MSM who ignore and divert with their DS limited hangout posturing or soft focussed presentation of Bozo daily reverence in various uniforms and propaganda pound shop Churchill poses. The new fascists channel getting daily pumping by ALL the press.
I have been getting daily more unpublishable apoplectic as these psycho COO/CEO’s and billionaire hedge funders and aristo classes have brought their cold blooded murder and plunder unashamedly to the heart of empire as they have always done to far away brown and black peoples.
My aggressive pun on Dido Harding’s name is fully justified. As she straps it on to screw the NHS to death whilst pushing the racist eugenic buttons of the Pavlovian trained peasants.
It would be best if Southgate and England throw the match tonight to stop any further super spreading events if they progress any further.
There are the other pillars of state that have shown themselves to be mere pawns too – The Church and the Judiciary and the New Laws that will remove juries and allow the gathering of the likes of me and you in our thousands as enemies of the State and THEIR INTERNATIONAL Interests.
And yup the dumb downed canon fodder who eat and repeat the inordinate amount of shit they have been slow boiled to do over the decades.
It is a war they long declared against us, to our literal death.
To pick up on the football analogy, I remember a heated debate some years ago on the BBC’s football show during the last World Cup
It concerned an incident in a Belgium match (sorry I can’t remember the opponents or indeed the outcome but I do remember the sequence of events).
A Belgian forward was tackled quite heavily inside the box but instead of doing the squealing dying swan act, he stayed on his feet and tried to carry on playing.
I believe it was Gary Lineker who led the praise for his actions but all in vain. The rest of the panel condemned him insisting that he should have dived. Not only that but they claimed the player in question could, by his selfishness, have caused his team to lose the game. I felt then that they didn’t know the Belgian mentality.
Then it dawned on me. The ‘diving to win a penalty’ had transferred from football into everyday life, especially in politics. The likes of Nicola Sturgeon and so many others have perfected it into a work of art.
If you’re prepared to scream and moan theatrically for every imagined slight you’re guaranteed to be a success.
Not for me. I knew there was a reason why I preferred rugby