The
entirely predictable scandal of the British tests continues. It now appears that the tests sent out by
post (and claimed as part of the 100k total in spite of not being taken on the
day) did not have return envelopes with them, and when somebody asked if they
could be sent by the testee was told that it should be junked and another test
would be sent. This is in addition to
the general disbelief in the figures themselves, and the revelation that the number
of tests yesterday was nowhere near the 100k figure.
Add to this the continuing scandals of the
deaths and lack of testing and PPE in care homes and you have something of a
perfect storm of disgust that should be levelled at the government for their
continuing mismanagement of the crisis.
There must surely come a time when the
inexplicable continuing belief in Johnson and his government as being in any
way competent must start touching reality.
Surely?
The numbers of deaths continue to grow and
we seem to be heading inexorably for a figure of over 30k – and I only hope
that in the months to come I don’t look back on that figure and smile wistfully
at my naivety in believing we could keep it so low.
In
Catalonia we have reached another level of lockdown release with the opening of
smaller shops, newsagents and the like.
Although this is obviously welcome, the testing is not in place to make
this strategy anything other than very, very risky.
On my early morning bike ride today there
were more people around that pre-crisis, but fewer than on the first day of
release on Saturday. There seem to be
more groups of people around and casual social interaction seems to be getting
back to ‘normal’ when the real situation is anything but normal.
To be fair, I did see (mainly older)
people in masks, but generally speaking people are not keeping the regulation
distance apart, and I think that the opening of shops will exacerbate this
tendency.
Our local pharmacy, perhaps unsurprisingly,
takes separation seriously and only allows two people in the shop at the same
time, uses Perspex shields on the counters, has hand sanitizer at the entrance,
and has assistants wearing masks at all times.
The local chicken rotisserie has a rope keeping the distance of
customers from servers, and when one man pushed in he was roundly admonished by
the owner, as was the assistant who had offered to serve him! If that level of separation is maintained by
other shopkeepers then this part of the strategy might just work. However, my observation, limited though it
necessarily is, would indicate that people are too quick to think invisibility
of the virus and fine weather are enough to ignore the consequences of old
style conviviality.
Disturbingly, I have just been told that
the progress of the virus in Madrid has taken a turn for the worse and the some
are wondering if the government will re-impose some of the restriction that
have so recently been taken down a level or so.
If these stories are true then it fits in with the low expectations of
how people behave on the ‘give them an inch and they take a mile’ sort of
analysis of human character! I will wait
and see the evidence for this before I put on my sadly smug face and shake my
head sorrowfully from side to side.
My
disgust with the way that the Conservative government of Johnson and his deadbeat
cabinet are handling the Covid-10 crisis continues. With the on-going controversy of the initial
approach to the virus and the discredited ‘herd immunity’ or according, to
Cummings, “Just let them die!” to the new scandals of the way in which Care
Homes have been neglected, taking in the absurdity of the way of counting in
the test numbers, there is nothing (and don’t forget Brexit) in this
government’s approach to give you anything approaching optimism for the future.
Welcome to modern Britain!
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