Herd immunity. Back to normal in 12 weeks. Game changer testing system. Five missed COBRA meetings. Shaking hands with Covid patients. Cheltenham races, Stereophonics concerts and Liverpool v Atletico Madrid allowed to go ahead with crowds. Empty Nightingale hospitals. The fiasco around shielding. The sudden announcement that shielding had finished.
The multibillion-pound Test and Trace embarrassment. Borders only ten months after the first lockdown. Schools open and closed and open and closed. Blaming the public while avoiding measures to stop the poorest from having to go into work.
Saving Christmas. Eat out to help out. Commute into work. Support your local Pret. Barnard Castle and no repercussions. Messaging that was all over the place.
GPs to open remotely. GPs blamed for ‘being closed’. That NHS England press release. PPE contracts. PPE unavailable for the front line staff that need it the most.
I’ve said from the start that managing this pandemic was an impossible job. But even with that caveat, the Government has taken the wrong step at almost every turn. And that, I am incredibly sad to say, is why the UK has one of the highest death rates in the world, with the devastating announcement that 100,000 people have died with Covid. RIP every one of them.
Jaimie Kaffash is editor of Pulse. Follow him on Twitter @jkaffash or email him at editor@pulsetoday.co.uk.
READERS' COMMENTS [11]
Please note, only GPs are permitted to add comments to articles
Left out discharges to care homes. No masks then masks. NHSE always behind the curve but trying to micromanage as usual. A litany of questionable competence and honesty obsured by politics
NEVER FEAR—THAT CLOWN AND HIS CIRCUS WON’T BE AROUND FOR MUCH LONGER
Please consider signing and sharing on uk gov e-petitions website
“ Public inquiry into Covid-19 pandemic immediately with the aim of saving lives”
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/331877
100000 not dead from covid–article is therefore meaningless
Excellent summary
Have signed the petition
Not that an enquiry will make any difference
They rarely do
Janine O’Kane
Thank you. No, probably not but at least we are able to register are dissatisfaction
*our
An excellent listing of the issues so far, clearly with scope for expansion to a book.
However government failings are somewhat academic given our Ruritanian constitution.
Sir Humphrey Appleby excellently explained the purpose of inquiries.
It is the job of Sir Keir,to oppose,to imprint clearly in the minds of the population,what he would do differently.So ask people, how clear are they ? Does anyone know anybody who has any idea whatsoever, what he would have done differently ?
His first objective should be to ensure he receives sage assessments at the same time as the prime minister. He then needs a separate set of experts,who take the Sage information,i.e.what is already known, and produce recommendations as to what to do.These two sets of experts must be kept completely separate,any contact between them is fatal. quite literally. Assessing the historical evidence, is a different role to recommending a future strategy. We need clarity of responsibility in order to judge effectively who to hang..
Sir Keir then needs to publicly announce his alternative going forward strategy, simultaneous with the prime ministers
Thus the public,can make a real time judgement as to their respective merits.
Who knows in time, they may decide to give him the job,in these strange times ,anything is possible
An enquiry should not be about registering dissatisfaction. It should be about learning lessons so we do better in future pandemics. No different to patient complaints. This is why many people clamour for an expensive public enquiry after a disaster but are left disappointed at the result. It will not bring one person back from the grave and will be too slow to make much difference in the next 6 months. It can only save lives in the next pandemic. But they rarely do that so are generally just a massive money spinner for lawyers and expensive window dressing.
“Lessons will be learned”. Perhaps Dildo Harding needs GCSE Biology? She apparently told a Commons Committee the other day that “nobody could expect the virus to mutate”. She clearly doesn’t know why we have ANNUAL Flu jabs.
200,000 dead my end of 2022. Mark my word.