Testing times and flight-shaming
THE “disastrous” coronavirus strategy in Britain, how lockdown is set to last for some time yet and whether the pandemic could end our love of flying were the latest aspects of Covid-19 to be debated by the newspapers.
The Daily Mail
Never one to hold back, Piers Morgan referred to a Reuters investigation into Britain’s handling of the coronavirus which he said had “exposed a litany of appalling complacency and catastrophic mistakes”.
“I have had a nagging feeling for weeks,” he said, “that the British Government’s repeated mantra of ‘we’re following the science’ is horribly flawed, because our science has been horribly flawed.
“It’s such an easy thing for government ministers to hide behind ‘experts’ during a war. That way, it’s never their fault and they never have to be accountable. But the greatest leaders don’t blindly follow expert advice, especially when it conflicts with other expert advice not just in the UK but around the world.
“Instead, they listen to all of it and then reach their own conclusions.”
He pointed out how nine
London bus drivers had died from the virus yet bus drivers weren’t being provided with PPE because “the experts” said they didn’t need it, when they clearly did.
“We’re sending all these brave warriors out to war with their hands tied behind their back,” he said. “Britain was woefully ill-prepared for this pandemic.”
The “experts”, he added, “advised an even more disastrous policy of ‘herd immunity’ that would have deliberately infected as many people as possible, and, they only belatedly realised, would have cost up to 500,000 lives.
“It’s looking more and more evident that Britain has got this horribly wrong from start to finish, and I suspect that’s one of the reasons why some people continue to defy government advice on vital things like social distancing – they just don’t believe what they’re being told.”
The Daily Record
The paper’s leader column asked when we, like Wuhan, would finally see light at the end of the tunnel.
“The World Health Organisation has not covered itself in glory since Covid-19 emerged as a global threat,” it said. “But, as the body responsible for international public health, what it says must be taken seriously. Dr Hans Kluge, WHO’S European director, has stressed the importance of mass testing to tighten the grip on the virus.”
It cited Germany – with the ability to carry out 500,000 tests a week (compared to Britain’s 300,000 since the pandemic began weeks ago) – as an example used by advocates of testing.
“Scotland has only tested 26,000 people in total since
March 1 so if the German model is the right approach, we are nowhere near achieving it and neither is the rest of the country,” it pointed out. “Hopefully the
UK’S approach has not simply been determined by years of chronic NHS underfunding and is based on sound conclusions drawn from the available evidence. An end to the lockdown here is weeks, possibly months, away. It is unclear when we will bring this nightmare to an end and it is worrying that there seems to be a disagreement on how it can be achieved.”
The Guardian
Nicola Badstuber, a travel behaviour researcher at University College London, said that if the Government bought a stake in airlines – once they were running again after an almost total shutdown – “this could be a turning point in transport policy, as the pandemic allows us to pivot to a lower air-travel future”.
“With a stake in the airlines (as part of a rescue package to save them from collapse), the government could directly oversee a policy of reducing air travel, which would be part of a wider low-carbon transport strategy,” she said. “Applying pricing tools such as a frequent flyer penalty, carbon emissionsbased tax or airport user surcharge would discourage air travel.
“The current interruption of global air travel is also an opportunity to shape future travel behaviours. The work, business and social habits adopted during the coronavirus crisis might spark a renewed sense of ‘flygskam’, or flight shame.”
In Greta Thunberg’s home country of Sweden, flygskam has resulted in air travel dropping by four per cent and travel by rail increasing by 17%, she said.
“We’ve known for years that we need to radically change our attitude to flying; Covid-19 could be the nudge we all needed.”