Too
Little Too Late - The Delay and Failure of Boris Johnson to Deal with the
Coronavirus and its Consequences Could Kill Thousands
It has just been announced that there are no new cases of COVID-19 in China.
Whatever the failings and flaws of the Chinese political and economic system,
China has illustrated that a determined campaign to eradicate this infectious
disease is perfectly possible. We don’t have to wait 18 months for a vaccine.
What is holding us back is the political and economic system we live under. The prioritisation of profit and the needs of capital
over human beings has resulted in a
failure to close workplaces, universities, schools, pubs and recreational
centres.
I have to confess that I have more than
a personal interest in this! In addition to being over 60 I had a liver
transplant 5 years ago and therefore take immune-suppressive medication. In the
event of contracting COVID-19 it is likely that I will become one more
statistic.
Only a week ago Boris Johnson announced
the Government’s ‘strategy’ to deal with Coronavirus, if one can dignify it
with that description. In essence it consisted of a series of platitudes such
as stay at home. Given the 3
options outlined by
researchers at Imperial College of suppression, mitigation or do nothing,
Johnson chose the latter.
It is only now that schools are to be
closed and still no news about pubs, swimming pools and gyms, cafés etc.
Although the mainstream media was uncritical of Johnson’s ‘strategy’ many people, especially
those in the medical world, realised what he was up to. Johnson's main concern was about business profitability not
people.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson
announced that his country would adopt
a different coronavirus strategy
from the ones its European neighbors have followed. Most governments have
sought to suppress the spread of the virus by reducing mass gatherings,
imposing quarantine restrictions, and encouraging social
distancing. But Johnson
said the country would forgo such measures
No doubt this was part of this poundshop
nationalist’s Brexit agenda, showing that we have now regained control from
Europe. The only problem is that, like Climate Change, Coronavirus is no
respecter of borders and national boundaries. Coronavirus has no nationality,
which is why Trump’s reference to a ‘China Virus’ is so absurd. Even if it did
come from China and that is still not certain, it hasn’t stayed there. No
amount of immigration barriers or Mexican walls is going to prevent it
spreading.
The Tory strategy was indeed different
from our European neighbours. It meant letting 60% of the population get ill
and thus allow ‘herd immunity’ to set in.
There was just one problem with that. It was going to cause a massive
number of deaths.
The World Health Organisation estimated that 3.4% of those who contract it will die. 60% of
Britain’s population is about 36 million.
In other words we are talking about over a million people. Even if we
assume that with the NHS the figures could be kept to 1% that would still be
some 360,000 deaths. As Anthony Costello, Professor of Global Health at UCL wrote:
The stated government policy is
to allow 40 million people to become infected. This could mean 6 million
hospital admissions, 2 million requiring special or intensive care, and 402,000
deaths if the chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty’s 1%
estimate of mortality is correct.
A statement from over 500 scientists in Britain caused
Johnson to realise that proudly proclaiming that we are British and therefore
different is not enough. Even if nationalism is irrational, science isn’t. We
live in a globalised world and the vain boast of the idiot in the White House
that border control has prevented Coronavirus in the USA is just one more of
his empty boasts (having first denounced it as a hoax). They wrote to express
their:
concern about the course of
action announced by the Government on 12th March 2020 we are deeply preoccupied
by the timeline of the proposed plan, which aims at delaying social distancing measures
even further…. Under unconstrained growth, this outbreak will affect millions
of people in the next few weeks. This will most probably put the NHS at serious
risk of not being able to cope with the flow of patients needing intensive care…
Going for “herd immunity” at this point does not seem a viable option, as this
will put NHS at an even stronger level of stress, risking many more lives than
necessary. By putting in place social distancing measures now, the growth can
be slowed down dramatically, and thousands of lives can be spared. We consider
the social distancing measures taken as of today as insufficient.
‘The beginning
of the outbreak had the exact same number of infections in China, Italy, and
other countries. The difference is that China strongly and quickly locked down
Wuhan and all of the Hubei region 8 days before Italy [3].
The
letter went on to say that just 8 days of delay would result in an ‘enormous increase in the number of total
deaths in Italy with respect to China.’ Italy has now had more deaths than
China. Whereas China has got the spread of Coronavirus under control, Johnson
and the Tories have helped spread it. By delaying the closure of schools and
other public institutions, the Tories embarked on a cull of the elderly and
vulnerable.
The death rate varies by age. 7.5% of
the over 70s who get the virus will die and this increases to 14% of the over
80s. Given that 67% of the over 70’s voted in the General Election for the
Tories compared to just 14% for Labour, it’s a strange way for Johnson to
express his gratitude for their stupidity. But then Johnson and the Tories main concern have
more pressing concerns - the interests of big business and capital. Killing off the elderly and vulnerable will also have the 'benefit' of saving countless millions in care costs and social security.
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| Johnson, front row and Cameron next to him |
Johnson,
who wrote a ‘flawed and self-serving’ biography of Churchill, imagines that he
is a second Winston rather than a vain and boastful Bullingdon boy born with a silver spoon in his gullet. He should take some lessons
from his hero.
Until
1940 Churchill was a failed politician.
In 1931 he had resigned from the Shadow Cabinet over the Tories support for
Dominion Status, i.e. self-government for India. In 1925 he had returned Britain to the Gold Standard thus
ensuring deflation and economic crisis even before the 1929 Wall Street crash.
What made Churchill’s reputation was the War and
his role as a national leader. Johnson’s first crisis has shown that he
is an inept puffball, a buffoon without an ounce of originality but someone who
understands where his class interests lie.
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| Boris Johnson is no Churchill |
For the
past 10 years, beginning with the Tory/Lib-Dem coalition, the NHS has been
starved of funds and facilities in order to achieve their aim, after the 2008-9
financial crash, of redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich. The result
is that we are more unprepared for the virus than virtually all other western countries
bar the USA. We have such a massive shortage of nurses because Theresa May decided that student nurses didn't need bursaries.
Whereas
Germany has 29.2 critical care beds per 100,000 of the population, the UK has
just 6.6 beds. We are 24th out of 31 European countries. No doubt
this is something that Brexit supporters are especially proud of, though it
remains to be seen if they will maintain their pride if they succumb to the
infection.
This may also help explain why Britain has one of the highest mortality rates (4.4%) and Germany has the lowest (0.2%), although many of these figures are provisional.
Above all
this infection is highly political. We can only deal with the outbreak together
and in co-operation whereas the spirit of capitalism was seen at 6.00 a.m. in
my local Asda when there was a rush to grasp the limited supplies of toilet
paper (which had run out by 7.00 a.m.).
Capitalism is both amoral, as George
Soros said and also inefficient since it has only one term of reference –
profit. It is a system which ensures that a tiny elite accumulates more and
more wealth as the rest of us get poorer. How can an economic and political system built on impoverishment be efficient, still less just!
Even worse capitalism distorts what should be
produced, hence why such a vast proportion of GDP is used to produce weapons,
which we are then told is essential to ‘peace keeping’. We now need ventilators
in a hurry but if production had been geared to such essential equipment in the
first place there wouldn’t be the present panic. And lacking any control over industry we cannot simply
order firms to diversify production.
Of course when COVID-19 threatens business then demands are
made for Corporate Welfare, the only kind of welfare the Tories like. Chancellor Riki Sunak has pledged £330 billions to help industry.
Undoubtedly there need to be loans to small and struggling businesses but it
would be an outrage if one penny of this went into the pockets of corporate fat
cats like Richard Branson. If much of the airline industry collapses it’s a
good thing. It will reduce the world’s carbon footprint enormously. There is no
excuse in the days of Skype and Zoom for someone flying to a meeting in New
York.
The
formation of hundreds of mutual aid groups shows that there is an alternative
to the dog-eat-dog ideology of free market capitalism. Self-isolation will be
particularly devastating for the old and frail, many of whom will be unable to
obtain help easily, go shopping etc.
We live
in a fragile ecosphere and Coronavirus is one more example of the damage we
are doing to the world. Once again we have an example of a pathogen jumping
from animals to humans because of poor hygiene and food practices
What We
Should Be Demanding
There is
a Petition Calling for the Labour Party, which
has so far been almost silent on the crisis, to adopt an emergency action plan.
There is also a good statement by West Ham Labour Party.
It is
crazy that sick pay is £98.25, the second lowest in Europe. It should be around
£300 per week. There is a need for a moratorium
on all evictions of tenants and mortgagees for failure to make payments.
Landlordism has always been parasitical on the real economy. Empty buildings
need to be requisitioned and open immediately for the homeless. There should be a moratorium on utility bills
for people self-isolated.
No one
should ever be on the street, especially now. There is no better way to spread
the infection than people having to live on the street. But this means
challenging the idea that private property rights are more important than human
need. Since there is £330 billions available it should go to the people who
need it not for corporations to pay it
to their shareholders.
There
needs to be an emergency injection of £50 billions into the NHS. If China could
create emergency hospitals in one week in order to successfully contain
COVID-19 why can British capitalism not emulate it? Whatever the many faults of the Chinese system
– a hybrid of centrally directed capitalism and collectivism – one thing is
certain. They have shown that it is possible, by acting quickly, to contain the
virus.
In
contrast Boris Johnson has wasted weeks in dithering. In the United States
health care is an integral part of the free market and it there that the
chickens have come home to roost. It is the most expensive health system in the world. In 2014
it spent $2.8 trillion and wasted £750 billions in things like administration, competition,
fraud, insurance profits and much more expensive drugs. 40 million Americans
are uninsured and over 50 million under insured.
People
can’t afford to seek help or not work in a society where there is no welfare
state and thus no safety net. Which is why the infection is rapidly spreading
in the USA. If the Democrats stood for a unified health system free at the
point of delivery then they would have a guaranteed victory in the November
elections. Instead, in Jo Biden, they are putting forward another corrupt
corporation in human form.
If you can't afford to be treated and can't afford to be tested then it is impossible to measure the extent of the crisis. Add to which without sick pay people who are sick will continue to go to work, thus spreading the virus.
The free
market is completely incapable of dealing with this crisis. In 1940 Churchill and the coalition
government adopted measures that Johnson would denounce as ‘communist’ today.
Nothing could be produced without the say so of the state. Exchange controls
and rationing were taken for granted. The state took over distribution of
resources. Imagine that instead of the unseemly rush at the supermarket at 6.00
a.m. that toilet paper, potatoes and Paracetemol (another shortage commodity)
were rationed on the basis of need?
The NHS
is so successful as a model precisely because it is an example of socialism.
You contribute what you can afford from taxation and take what you need. It is their ideological hostility to the NHS
and what it stands for that has led to its stealth privatisation over the past
decade.
What we need today is the
requisitioning of all beds and facilities in the private sector, a sector that
has been parasitic on the NHS for far too long.
there is
nothing unique about the coronavirus crisis. It is simply a heightened version
of the less visible crisis we are now permanently mired in. As Britain sinks
under floods each winter, as Australia burns each summer, as the southern
states of the US are wrecked by hurricanes and its great plains become
dustbowls, as the climate emergency becomes ever more tangible, we will learn
this truth slowly and painfully
We have
the scandal that the crisis in Iran will be far worse because of sanctions. The
pretext for this, that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon or that it
sponsored terrorism, is shocking. If
nuclear weapons were the problem then Israel too should be under sanctions. If
terrorism were the problem then not only Israel, but Saudi Arabia for its war
in Yemen and the Gulf Sheikdoms would be sanctioned, to say nothing of the United States itself. But of course they are the
West’s allies and the West doesn’t do terrorism.
What this
means concretely is that Iran’s people will die in their thousands to satisfy
the appetite of Trump and Netanyahu. Apart from basic humanitarianism, this is utterly
counter-productive. People who travel to
Iran and then get infected will simply pass on the infection.
As the World Health Organisation has
made clear it is important to test, test, test.
As of
Wednesday there were 2,626 cases and 104 deaths in
Britain. These are likely to be gross underestimates. Given that only those
already seriously ill are being tested we may already have over 100,000 cases
of infection. Many deaths may be attributed to different causes as well.
It is
clear that now infections have reached over 100 that the infection is spreading
fast. There needs to be a massive testing programme put in place now coupled
with quarantining of those infected. If you are not even testing people until
they fall ill how can you possibly know the extent of the problem? Everyone
should be tested.
The
decision to close schools is welcome but far too late. Likewise a decision should have been taken to
close pubs, bars, clubs and other communal spaces. But it is not enough. As the
WHO spokesman said:
The most
effective way to prevent infections and save lives is breaking the chains of
transmission and to do that you must test and isolate . You cannot fight a fire
blindfolded and we cannot fight this pandemic if we don’t know who is infected.
Because of its almost instant reaction, China's
mortality rate from COVID-19 has been 0.4-0.7% - a
fraction of what European countries are now experiencing and which
Britain, thanks to the murderous incompetence of Boris Johnson’s regime is also
experiencing. China has been using a
drug developed in Cuba, Interferon
Alpha-2B which inhibits lethal complications in those who become
infected with the virus. Although it is
licensed in the UK the government has been silent about its use. Why?
This is really important since there is no guarantee that a
vaccine will work. There is no vaccine for HIV or the common cold, both viral
infections. It may well be that the same route as that of HIV, mitigation and
alleviation, will be the best route. It is also somewhat ironic that despite
its economic size Cuba, because it isn’t a free market economy, has a health
service that is superior to the United States. For example infant mortality in Cuba is
less (4.4%) than that of its big neighbour (5.8%). Hence why Cuba was willing to
take in a British cruiser with nearly 700 passengers on board that
the Barbados, the Bahamas and the United States rejected. See Tory
inaction is leading Britain into unnecessary Coronavirus catastrophe
The failure to deal effectively with
Coronavirus, which can be considered another other man-made natural disaster,
is not because of the scientific problems but the systemic problems of a
political and economic system that prioritises private profit and greed over
human need. If disaster strikes in over populated Gaza, subject to Israel’s
brutal siege for over a decade, with an almost collapsed health service then
the responsibility for what happens will be that of the West which encouraged
Israeli oppression by opposing the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement.
97% of Gaza’s water is polluted, its population ‘kept on a diet’ by the brutal Israeli occupation regime which
calculates how many calories are allowed into the territory (much as the Nazis
calculated the calorific intake of the Warsaw Ghetto.
Coronavirus
Bill and the Attack on Civil Liberties
The government has just released proposed legislation. In the words of ITV’s political
correspondent, Robert Peston:
There has never in my lifetime been a law
that so encroached on our civil liberties and basic rights as the Coronavirus
Bill, scheduled to become law by end of month. It is all aimed at keeping us
safe. But the transfer of unchallengeable power to the state for two years is huge. It covers everything from burials, to
holding those who threaten national security for longer, to closing borders, to
detaining those with mental health issues, to empowering the police to
quarantine those with the virus, and much more. This is... wartime stuff.
In particular the Bill:
·
Allows
health professionals and the Police to
detain someone suspected of being affected
·
Allow just one doctor to section (detain)
someone against their will under the Mental Health Act. This is a massive power
for just one doctor who may for example have a personal grudge against that
person.
·
Instead
of being detained for a maximum of 6
months before a review, that detention will now be indefinite.
·
The
NHS will now no longer have to provide care and treatment plans for those
leaving hospitals.
·
Reductions
in standard of social care for the elderly, disabled and others.
·
Deaths
to Coronavirus will not be subject to being heard by an inquest jury.
The law will last 2 years and be passed
as secondary legislation, i.e. without any scrutiny. Even more worrying Labour,
which is supposed to be the Opposition, has said it won’t oppose the Bill.
Emergencies such as Coronavirus are the
ideal opportunity for the government to get away with a massive attack on civil
liberties under the guise of dealing with the emergency. Reductions in the
rights of mentally handicapped people have nothing whatever to do with fighting
the virus. For more information see The Tories just revealed the most terrifying part of
their coronavirus plan
Economic
Impact
Coronavirus is going to have a massive
economic impact. The leisure industry could be devastated. Rail and bus will see far fewer travelers.
Many workplaces will be shut down and consumption ie demand will also fall
away. Coupled with Brexit Britain is certainly heading into a recession. The
only question is whether it becomes a depression.
Reading
up on the Virus
Here is a list of what to do compiled from various sites
by Spotlight and here is a useful interview with a doctor.
Tony Greenstein
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