Government simply haven’t done enough
IN HANDLING the Covid pandemic, the Government used to claim to be “following scientific advice” though it later leaked out that the March lockdown which the SAGE team of experts recommended was delayed at least a week while Boris Johnson dithered.
A delay which a scientist from SAGE estimates has caused 20,000 extra deaths.
Then the Government switched to saying it was “taking account of” the SAGE evidence, weasel words which meant they were cherry-picking the scientific advice and doing only the easy bits which would not upset rebellious Tory MPs.
And now they have abandoned even that position and have moved on to refusing to implement SAGE’s advice to impose a two-week lockdown across the country, as a circuit breaker to stop the virus from spreading. Whilst harassing people like Manchester’s Andy Burnham, who is only trying to prevent some of his people moving from poverty to destitution.
Rather like someone who refuses to get a lump in their body seen by a doctor because they are too busy at work, they seem to imagine that a health problem, which is doubling every week even in the low-Covidincidence parts of the country, can be neglected until it reaches a disaster level.
By which point many more of us will have died and there will still be considerable damage done to the economy by locking it down – for much longer than a short, sharp circuit breaker- with more economic damage, than if they had acted earlier.
As Boris’ hero, surely, would have said: “Action this day!” We, however, will be sitting waiting for the next U-turn from our favourite donkeys.
Ian Gibson, via email Written before full lockdown announced Lighting Up 07:19 and 16:31 07:21 and 16:29 07:23 and 16:28 07:25 and 16:26 07:27 and 16:24 07:29 and 16:22 07:31 and 16:21 Nov 05: Nov 06: Nov 07: Nov 08: Nov 09: Nov 10: Nov 11: 01:10 8.6 13:22 8.6 01:46 8.3 14:00 8.3 02:30 7.9 14:48 7.9 03:27 7.6 15:55 7.6 04:45 7.4 17:19 7.6 06:11 7.6 18:39 7.9 07:24 8.1 19:45 8.5 Tide Times Nov 05: Nov 06: Nov 07: Nov 08: Nov 09: Nov 10: Nov 11: