The Guardian has reported this morning that:
The flagship public health body set up by Boris Johnson to combat the pandemic is in turmoil, with plans looming to cut jobs by up to 40% and suspend routine Covid testing in hospitals and care homes to save money.
They add:
Whitehall sources have told the Guardian that the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), led by Dr Jenny Harries, is in a state of disarray, with morale at rock bottom and concerns it is not funded to cope with any resurgence in the pandemic. Public health experts warned that the “alarming” cuts could cost lives.
More than 800 staff are due to be lost from vital health protection teams across the country in the coming months, a reduction of 40% from the current 2,000 members of staff.
To contextualise this I note this data, from the UK Covid stats site, published yesterday:
Covid is out of control.
More than 300 people a day are dying from it. That is more than died in the UK's worst air disaster. And yet the government wants to give up testing for it because it is supposedly too expensive.
Having shut down much of the economy two years ago for Covid, now we want to pretend it does not exist and are ignoring all those who are, and who will, die of it, all to support the political narrative tbat Covid has been beaten in this country, which is a blatant lie.
Those involved in this decision are, in my opinion, committing crimes by deliberately putting lives at risk. I hope that one day they are tried for them.
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Another criminal shambles, failing the public, in keeping the population healthy and alive.
Long Covid is also not receiving any attention, with disastrous consequences. The latest study suggests that 400,000 are out of the workforce as a result. Anecdotally 65 employees that I know of are suffering. As they tend to be the most skilled and experienced (with 3 exceptions all 50+), it behaving an impact on in-company training, productivity, and most vitally new product/ service development.
Long Covid in children particularly terrifies me.
A child aged 5 entering the school system with no/minimal protection will catch covid off his/her classmates multiple times before they leave education at 18. 6-7 times if they catch it once per 2 years.
Each infection is a die roll on the chance of getting Long Covid (ie still have symptoms after 8 weeks). It’s approximately 5% chance per infection.
That’s approx 30% of students will experience during their education Long Covid as well as multiple episodes of Covid.
I don’t know how to make a reasonable estimate of how many will become lifetime disabled but imagine if it’s half. 15% of the people who would be working, paying taxes, paying for our pensions and our state could be out of the workforce and in need of support themselves.
This could be the biggest health disaster since the Black Death. It would transform society and society’s values creating a huge tension between the healthy and the disabled.
And it could be reduced if we took basic public health measures like making sure everyone washes their hands, uses tissues when coughing or sneezing, wears masks and that HEPA filters are in every school.
I share your fear
I had COVID in December 2021. I am fine, thanks, but I still have occasional phantosmia. A strange acrid, smoky smell that isn’t there, like old cigarettes or burnt toast. Annoying but bearable. But I expect the immunity that I achieved from that infection, and a booster in January, are now waning.
As for the longer term, it is thought that those who survived Spanish flu were two or three times more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220127-could-covid-19-still-be-affecting-us-in-decades-to-come
In the discussion about employment it is forgotten that we have lost not just 400,000 (mentioned above); but in total circa 1million from the workforce (Brexit will loom in this wider loss). The effects of this significantly distorts the employment (and perhaps inflation) stats, especially the fictions being peddled and propagandised by the Johnson Government.
My family has been hit by Covid this Easter.
Three out of four of us had it they’ve all been rather poorly. It ruined Easter TBH.
So far I am still not testing positive so finger crossed. But if you are older or ill already I can see why the virus could take you – it’s very unpleasant. And it lingers too, in young and old.
I hate the way the Tories have just brushed this aside.
I remain very careful…..
As am I. But I was trapped in A&E for five hours a couple of weeks ago, and caught it then. Now I cannot get follow-up appointments in the relevant department because it has been decimated – by the virus-that-isn’t-there.
I hope you get well soon
I have been plotting the deaths per day over 7 days versus the cases detected per day over the previous 4 weeks. Over the last 2 months the figure has gone from fewer than 2 deaths per 1,000 earlier cases to more than 6 deaths per 1,000 earlier cases.
Has the virus quietly become more lethal than we thought?
Or more likely the Government has just stop bothering to follow the spread of the virus?
I won’t burden you with my view of Government policy
The government is not bothering…
As Matthew Taylor of the NHS confederation said : “In our view, we do not have a ‘living with Covid’ plan, we have a ‘living without restrictions’ ideology, which is different. We need to put in place the measures that are necessary to try to alleviate the pressures on our health service while this virus continues to affect [it].”
This was rejected out of hand by the government.
It is really scary – are we a democracy if there is no way of stopping government deliberately killing its own citizens or at least deliberately letting them die when they could be protected?
At least govt action has been found unlawful at the beginning of the pandemic when they discharged infect people into care homes
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/27/covid-discharging-untested-patients-into-care-homes-was-unlawful-says-court
This was a crowd – funded challenge by two grieving people.
I suppose the present criminals who are killing over a thousand a week will only be brought to account through some kind of similar action.
But what is the consequence?
Here is the court judgment. https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2022/967.html
In short, the court has declared that Secretary of State (i.e. Hancock) and Public Health England both acted irrationally by failing to take steps in late March and early April 2020 to deal with the known possibility asymptomatic transmission when patients were returned to care homes. That careless policy undoubtedly led to thousands of unnecessary deaths.
And this damning finding is spun thus: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-61227709
“A spokesman for Matt Hancock said the case “comprehensively clears ministers of any wrongdoing and finds Mr Hancock acted reasonably on all counts”.
He said: “The court also found that Public Health England failed to tell ministers what they knew about asymptomatic transmission.” ”
Lies. The court does not “comprehensively [clear] ministers” or find that Hancock “acted reasonably on all counts”. It finds that he acted irrationally.
More lies. The court also does not find that PHE failed to tell minsters about asymptomatic transmission. The court says (para 278) “the growing appreciation that asymptomatic transmission was a real possibility ought to have prompted a change in Government policy” and (para 287) “although there had been growing awareness of the risk of asymptomatic transmission … there is no evidence that the Secretary of State or anyone advising him addressed the issue”
And then (para 289) “Since there is no evidence that this question was considered by the Secretary of State, or that he was asked to consider it, it is not an example of a political judgment on a finely balanced issue. Nor is it a point on which any of the expert committees had advised that no guidance was required. Those drafting the March Discharge Policy and the April Admissions Guidance simply failed to take into account the highly relevant consideration of the risk to elderly and vulnerable residents from asymptomatic transmission.”
That said, at least one person was paying some attention: para 292 – “the Minister for Social Care (Ms Whately) was raising concerns about this aspect of the guidance”
Why is there so little evidence? Paragraph 258 is striking: “In this case, by contrast with most judicial review cases where the Defendant is a Secretary of State, the decisions under challenge were taken by the Secretary of State (Mr Hancock) personally rather than by an official for whom the Secretary of State was responsible in law. … The main witness statements on behalf of the Secretary of State come from Mr Surrey, who joined the DHSC with effect from 30 March 2020.”
Why was Hancock not giving evidence about the decisions that he personally made? Why is the main evidence coming from a person who joined the department after the pandemic was under way?
Thank you
I see the Prime Minister was asked about it today and responded that we did not know about asymptomatic transmission. That is not correct. The very thing – the risk of asymptomatic transmission – was the reason why Hancock and PHE were found to have acted irrationally.
As paragraph 289 of the judgment says “Those drafting the March Discharge Policy and the April Admissions Guidance simply failed to take into account the highly relevant consideration of the risk to elderly and vulnerable residents from asymptomatic transmission.”
And then in paragraph 293 “the decision to issue the 2 April Admissions Guidance in that form was irrational in that it failed to take into account the risk of asymptomatic transmission, and failed to make an assessment of the balance of risks.”
It is there in black and white.
Thanks again
To bang home the point, here is Matt Hancock replying to Wes Streeting in the House of Commons on 16 March: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2020-03-16/debates/235689EC-0A18-4488-BFCF-9F012A1A0C1B/Covid-19#contribution-165604A3-522E-43E7-A1B0-7E7EC504BAEF
Wes Streeting : “Professor Costello of University College London says that the virus is particularly contagious at the early stages before symptoms present. Given the prevalence of this virus in London in particular, is the current Government’s strategy based too heavily on responding to observable symptoms and is there not a case now for going further faster, particularly in London?”
Matt Hancock : “The point behind household isolation is precisely to address the concerns that the hon. Gentleman has raised. Furthermore, by reducing all unnecessary social contact, we will help to reduce the sorts of transmissions that he talks about.”
Hancock was asked about and responded to a question specifically about asymptomatic transmission, a week before the first lockdown, saying he was taking steps to reduce it. Yet somehow we did not know about this? That disjunction, between what was known or suspected and what was done, is why the high court has ruled that releasing elderly patients from hospitals to care homes without taking account of that possibility was irrational and unlawful.
Well spotted
It looks like come the autumn and winter we need to be in lockdown unless more restrictions are introduced now. The Conservative ignorance of infectious disease spread is certainly criminal negligence and they should be held to account. Whatever happened to the “review” of the government handling of the Covid crisis of 2020/1?
Why are the BBC,ITV News,Sky and other media outlets no longer telling us about these figures on a day to day basis as they used to do ? Have their brave and independent journalists been ordered not to do so? The impression has been created that the pandemic is over and people are acting accordingly.
Ukraine broke the habit
The latest weekly data on excess deaths in England and Wales is enlightening:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending15avril2022
Never mind that the ONS are using the French spelling of April, being the amusing dolts at times they are. Just look at that headline number of 9,919 deaths. Shocking and worrying.
9,919 is nit the issue
Excess deaths is, especially given how distorted this data now is
“specially given how distorted this data now is”
You’re quite right Richard. Including 2021 in the 5 year average could lead to distortion, so I went back to some older ONS data to find what the 2015-2019 (i.e. pre-Covid years) information was to get a clearer picture.
The latest ONS data in 2022 is to week 15 and shows deaths in England and Wales to week 15 from all causes was 171,161.
The week 15 5 year average 2015-19 equivalent number was 174,693.
Chilling numbers indeed.
And you ignore how many have already died early
I’ve been plotting the monthly excess deaths against the pre-pandemic 10-year data since the start of the pandemic. I can’t take population changes into account, but on this basis, excess deaths to March 2022 are 175270 and show a continual to rise. I would suggest that the ONS is being directed by HMG to adopt a statistical analysis that minimises the reality.
I think your conclusion very likely