Coronavirus , the blame game, and incompetence.
Coronavirus , the story and why Boris Johnson is to blame.
by Allan Sharpe former BBCTV Current Affairs Producer / Director and Former Govt law enforcement officer.
January 2020 year an epidemic started in Wuhan China. Other respiratory infections had mainly remained in SE Asia hitherto. But Coronavirus transmitted from animals to humans was to become a Global pandemic through air travel, because it was airborne and easily transmitted. There was no cure.
In Britain the Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the House of Commons a pack of lies. This is of utmost importance because it paints a picture, sets the tone for recklessness and negligence as well as deception by this Tory Government . Because it was a public statement to MPs and to Parliament by the man in authority.
23rdJanuary “ Coronavirus is of low risk to the UK, which is well prepared and well equipped, world leaders in testing.”
All 4 points were to be proved false. Indeed Hancock made this statement knowing that the stockpile of PPE protection for doctors and nurses had not been updated. He knew there was no testing system, he knew UK was not well prepared, he knew there was no vaccine no cure. He knew that the island of Britain was still open for business, airports and ports. The Cygnus report of 2016 hade been filed "WPB Waste Paper Bin". It showed after a 3 days mock event, that the NHS lacked equipment, beds and staff.
Back on the 14th September 2017 The Tory Cabinet had been warned of a flu like pandemic in a Civil Emergencies report. It stated 50% of population would be infected, high level of absence from work, 20,000 to 750,000 fatalities.
July 2019 one of Johnson’s first acts as new PM was to abolish the Threats, Hazards, Resilience and Contingency Committee
MPs such as Michael Gove and Matt Hancock were part of the pandemic team.
The Government also knew that after 10 years of Tory Austerity 200,000 nurses had left the profession and 70,000 doctors. Hospitals and wards had been closed, There were less beds and less in ICU. After the 2016 referendum thousands of EU health care workers had left Britain with Brexit looming. Nurses had no pay rise for 10 years.
Against this backdrop of guilty knowledge, recklessness and negligence, the Coronavirus came to Britain through air travel. BUT, the airports remained open and the ports.
In January/ February the PM avoided 8 conference calls with the EU, refused help and supplies of PPE and ventilators from EU. Ignored the advice from WHO of “test test test”. Other countries, like S Korea and Germany were testing infected people and isolating them from the remaining healthy population.
March 2nd was the first Cobra Meeting Johnson attended, He had hitherto been on holiday in the Caribbean. This was the 6th Cobra meeting, so he had missed the first 5. By now 36 Brits were dead in England. Mainly tourists coming home. 2 Chinese students brought the plague to York. The government flew back other holiday makers from cruises and resorts and quarantined them in hotels. Still the ports and airports remained open with no testing facilities. The Government was considering herd immunity requiring 40million to contract the disease. By now up to 20% of infected patients world wide were dying. Herd immunity is discounted instantly by countries like New Zealand. The death rate annually for flu is 0.01%. The wearing of Masks was being made mandatory by many countries following WHO advice. Not in Britain.
Liverpool played Athetico Madrid and although the Madrid football supporters were banned by their government from watching football matches in Spain, thousands flew into Liverpool to watch the game. Cheltenham horse racing lasted a week with No 10 saying Coronavirus was of no risk to crowds.
March 12 World Health Organisation set up by the United Nations, stated they were deeply concerned some governments were not treating Coronavirus seriously. 8 days later March 20 Britain goes into lockdown. Europe is already in lockdown. By April Johnson said he was ill himself as the death totals mounted to 980 a day. Johnson’s admission to hospital for a couple of days of tests diverts the media attention and headlines. The doctor and nurses treating the Prime Minister were all foreign, Italian, Portugese and New Zealander.
The first doctors and nurses die treating patients, even bus drivers taking people to work. Many of them immigrants dying in Britain trying to save British lives. Although Britain is soon to be in lockdown, people will be allowed to exercise and there are many other exemptions and anomalies. Police chiefs will say the rules or laws are mainly unenforceable .
March 12 also saw the start of emptying hospital beds as demand exceeded supply. The elderly were moved out to care homes, untested, and consequently the virus was spread amongst the most vulnerable, Some care homes lost a third of their residents.
Nightingale Hospitals were hastily erected , but nurses could not be in 2 places at once, so although headline grabbing, they were a waste of more money.
Johnson now began the privatisation of Public Health England, awarding untendered NHS contracts to private companies set up or managed by his friends. Friends who had no experience like Baroness Dido Hardin who was CEO at Talk Talk when customers personal details were hacked. Other lucrative contracts went to companies for Test and Trace, as well as PPE. £bns on secret deals. Test n Trace was mainly run at national call centres manned by school leavers on minimum wage who worked from a script, and were otherwise untrained. There were now winners and losers in Coronavirus and opportunities for the unscrupulous to make profit from death, misery and suffering.
The Government had tried to juggle several balls at once , the economy, wealth v health and education, one by one the balls came crashing down.
Although people got government help for being put out of work and businesses closed down, 3million got nothing as they did not qualify There was also abuses by companies claiming furlough for workers illegally such was the panic and lack of control. Recession came to the tune of £2tn , that was £30,000 debt for every man woman and child. But, whereas Theressa Mayhem had told a nurse on BBCTV Question time, there was no magic money tree for her profession. Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to be able to do the conjuring trick and certainly for the Government chums - called Cronyism or simply corruption.
The summer came and lock down was eased the children went back to school the people headed for the packed beaches and holidays abroad as if nothing had happened. Indeed Stanley Johnson flew to sunny climes, then came back not wearing a mask on London Transport in defiance of his son’s new rules. In addition Boris’s top advisor Dominic Cummings broke the rules he had helped make by leaving home and doing a round trip of Britain some 500 miles taking in the sites of Barnard castle, and there were no regrets, no apologies and no reprimand.
Instead of the Government now using a lull in Coronavirus to implement an improved public health strategy, Johnson took advantage of a series of photo opportunities at various factories and ship yards to again steal the headlines from all that nasty negative news.
It was not until the autumn that the inevitable 2nd wave arrived. A new more virulent strain, after all those summer holidays spent abroad. Johnson had always been behind, slow off the starting blocks, never caught up, never had foresight and now showed no hindsight either.
Johnson still had the habit of not listening to scientific and medical advice and evidence until it was time to knee jerk at the 11th hour. Hence the public health strategy failed as did test and trace, as did many other outsourced private contracts where PPE was either the wrong sort or out of date.
The 2nd wave arrived, now there were local lockdowns for people to resent, and ignore. Lockdowns where schools were still open, where there were more exemptions than rules. Where boundaries were set up, but the virus knew no calendar, no borders. The virus also did not hang around waiting for a Prime Minster to make his mind up.
So Britain became a land of chaos and confusion, with some businesses doing a hokey cokey, staff coming in then told to go out, In out in out, they did not know what it was all about.
The death toll mounted. Christmas was on then Christmas was off, Britain became an ever increasing tier system, where the real tears were one of fears.
Sir Patrick Vallance had said in the beginning as Government advisor that he was hopeful the Government's 'extreme' demands on public could cut mortality rate. That 20,000 dead would be a success. June 3rd Johnson told the House of Commons that he was “ proud” of his handling of the Coronavirus Crisis, A crisis where he has ignored requests to meet the bereaved or hold mourning. Instead he wanted applause on the doorstep for him and the NHS.
Now the death toll is nearing 75,000 even after the Government lopped 5,000 off the figures, by cooking the books. Office of National Statistics put the figures much higher
Boris Johnson always wanted to be a world leader. For much of the year he was European Leader until Italy overtook him, but Johnson prevailed and sailed ahead 1820 body bags in one day was Boris´s record as the chaos and confusion over Christmas reeked its toll and the 2nd wave became more deadly that the 1st. His daily death toll was 2nd highest in the world where many of his rivals had far bigger populations. Now 5th in the world as worse statistics of death, many of them needless, because of a failed and flawed public health strategy. AS with the Christmas U Turn, and allowing no restrictions first for 5 days then on the Eve of Christmas just one day. It was all chaos and confusion and unnecessary. Countries with denser and bigger population like Japan, Nigeria had less deaths in a year than Boris Britain had in a week !! There are 200 nations in the world of this Global pandemic. Boris was 5th. He now has to borrow 14.5% of GDP, many businesses and jobs have gone, many lives lost 128,000 at the time of this report, many families left in misery and suffering. Johnson has never met the bereaved, never visited the heart mural in Westminster commemorating the deaths. Johnson has given his failed test and trace system 37 billion pounds. Has lavished and squandered millions on chumocracy contracts to friends, untendered, no experience. Ignored businesses that could have come up with the goods. He has built up a 2 trillion pound recession
Johnson always pitted wealth versus health and fell between two stools. Even 14 months on he adds India in crisis with deaths in the streets of Delhi 2 weeks too late to his red list of quarantine air passengers.
New Variants are invading Britain from South Africa, Brazil and India. Meanwhile Boris´s greatest export is the Kent Variant, the main . variant in the world surpassing the original chinese version.
So Johnson is not only to blame for deaths in Britain but also world wide as Countries imposed bans on the British travellers.
It is sad that Johnson was elected a year ago, It is sad that Britain cannot emulate a country like Germany, that has a bigger population and a far lower death toll. It is sad that Johnson has to act like the schoolboy again when vaccine approval is rushed through and claim the success, when he had nothing to do with it’s creation. It is sad that the schoolboy has to dress up as a clinician for photo opportunities, that he never learnt from lessons of the last 14 months. Lessons that would have saved so many lives.
Even the vaccine roll out is not administered in accordance with manufacturers instructions, for which approval was granted. Johnson has exported zero vaccines to a global pandemic whereas the EU has exported 46m doses, including 10 m to Boris Brexit Britain.
Coronavirus Covid 19 is on circa 128,000 plus death certificates in Britain this year. Many, if not most, have died needlessly because of Government incompetence, recklessness, and negligence. The Head of that Government and policy making is unfortunately Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. He will blame everybody but him. These facts show that there is one person primarily to blame and that is him.
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.
Kommentare