Covid is real! Government policy is questionable!

 

COVID IS REAL!!

COVID IS SERIOUS!!

Every death matters, whether from Covid or not.

Of course I want the NHS to be able to cope with the winter surge in hospitalisations!

Questioning the specific policies of the Government is NOT Covid denialism or being anti-vaxxer or not caring about the seriously ill or dismissing the NHS staff or any other of the ridiculous strawman mischaracterisations that anyone who dares to ask awkward questions about Government policy are usually accused of.

The NHS always struggles hugely in the winter months and with Covid, yes, special measures were required.

I’ve been saying for months that this should have been organised in the summer by building more Nightingale Hospitals and calling for volunteers from retired doctors/nurses & final year medical and nursing students for autumn training specifically on Covid. A Volunteer Medical Reserve like the TA.
They would then have been on stand-by to staff the Nightingale Hospitals over the winter which were, after all, built for the exact purpose of taking the strain off the main NHS hospitals. 

Instead, seemingly all eggs were put in the vaccine basket that was never going to be ready & tested by the beginning of December. 

Even those vaccines now available take 3 weeks or more after inoculation to become fully effective; and are at best effective for 75% of people on crrent information. We also don't have sufficient data yet to know if vaccinated poeple can still carry & pass the virus on.

How can we know? 

Vaccines developed in 6 months cannot have been tested sufficiently to answer these longer-term questions. 

Simple prima facie safety for most (not all) people is all there has been time to do clinical trials for.
Some people think that so much money has been thrown at the vaccines that it has been possible to condense years of clinical trials into a few months.
Nonsense!
Obviously, clinical trials to evaluate long term effects need to be conducted over the long term; money has nothing to do with it!

The current mass vaccinations are actually the clinical trial to find out these longer term answers.
Fingers crossed that we get the answers we want, eh?

Are the vaccines better than nothing?
Of course they are but ‘nothing’ is a pretty low bar to have to beat isn’t it?
These vaccines may not turn out to be the panacea that many, out of fear & desperation, seem to believe.

Even if the vaccines are highly effective, like flu, Covid will be back each year in differing forms and we will have to live with it well into the future. 

The future. Yes, that’s the problem isn’t it?

I understood the first lockdown.
Owing to the disgraceful behaviour of China, in cahoots with the WHO, trying to play the problem down, we couldn't be sure in March whether we were dealing with the Black Death or something closer to flu in terms of mortality rates.
But with what we know now, that huge swathes of the UK’s economy have been closed down again instead of focussing on shielding as best possible the vulnerable and preparing the Nightingale Hospitals to take Covid patients from the start of December is the issue that ministers, PHE, SAGE & the NHS leadership need to be scrutinised over. 

At some point, the lockdown cure will do more damage than the disease. 
At some point the disbenefits of lockdowns (economic, medical and social) must outweigh any benefits. Many think that point has been and gone!

This can’t be a controversial view as it’s plain common-sense but it’s not being discussed; or at least not by politicians or the mainstream media.

Is the job of Government simply to look at the immediate problem and solve that at whatever price for the future?

Well, if Covid was killing as many people as the Black Death (30-40% of the population) or even the Spanish Flu of 100 years ago (2-3%), perhaps you could make a case for that.
But as the fatality rate is less than 0.2% of the population, surely Government’s job is to make special arrangements for those known to be particularly vulnerable, vaccinate the NHS staff and carers, get as many Covid patients into Nightingale Hospitals as possible, but then to do what’s best for the economic and social well-being of the country, not just right now, but for future years; and yet this doesn’t appear to be be happening.

Lockdowns are NOT what’s best for the economic and social well-being of the country for future years. They are a short-term panic measure that doesn't really work but gives the impression of doing something useful.

All lockdowns can do is slightly delay the spread.
They can't stop the spread because too many people MUST work to keep society functioning.
So, many people have to continue mixing to some extent with others that spread is inevitable, lockdown or not.

Neither proper leadership, nor bravery in the face of pressure, nor transparency & honesty with data are exactly to the fore with this Government.
(In this they are no diffrent to any other).
We are only told the information they think will bolster the case for their chosen policies, not everything we need and are entilted to know.

But since the opposition parties and most of the media companies (both mainstream & social), seem to have fallen into line, the Government have no pressure being put on them to improve either their honesty or transparency, sadly.

And without honesty or transparency, there will be no pressure and therefore no incentive for Government to make better decisions.