#Coronavirus: We all need protection and assurances will not suffice

Everyone’s a suspect viral host

The clamour to open up our country is beginning to sound shrill, for a people who have been in quarantine for 8 weeks as business, the world and life as we know it shut down, we have with patience and equanimity borne the strains, the pain, and the hardships with renowned British stoicism.

Yet, we must not be oblivious of the new reality, the reason we are in this situation is that we have to suspect everyone has the Coronavirus and so the ability to infect anyone they come in contact with. We also can be asymptomatic vectors of the virus or vulnerable to contracting it.

That is why we have the social distancing, but the 2-metre rule is at standstill, when you are moving, the distance needs to increase, people walking need to be about 4 metres apart to be out of the draft or slipstream of the person ahead. If cycling, that distance probably must increase to around 20 metres. The rule of thumb does not account for practical considerations.

Cover and test

Then, the use of face coverings, masks and respirators amid great demand and short supply. I hope to take delivery of some face coverings, but we must not be lured into a false sense of security, the threat is around us, unseen and cannot be warded off except by almost absolute sequestration with no contact with outsiders. We cannot maintain that for long.

The next line of protection or rather assessment is testing, identification, contact tracing, isolation, and treatment if required. The testing regime is a shamble, we cannot even be sure of the numbers bandied around by the government. The antibodies test is for now, for curiosity purposes as no one knows if the presence of antibodies confers immunity and if it does, for how long. There is still much to do.

Protect the teachers first

The quest to get the schools open by the 1^st of June in England is fraught with uncertainties and serious concerns. Whilst children might not be vulnerable to that much to the virus, there are indications that those who succumb to it present other symptoms than the known pulmonary issues observed in adults.

Otherwise, they might be asymptomatic, yet dangerous vectors of the Coronavirus to their teachers, parents, and guardians alike. It means adequate provision should be made for teaching and auxiliary staff in schools, probably PPE at the minimum, which might seem excessive, but not beyond the pale.

We must not be cajoled into making additional martyrs and heroes of the teachers after how the Coronavirus cut down the lives of frontline staff in the NHS, in care homes and transport services. These people were exposed to the public without adequate protection and the so-called heroes are dead and buried without ceremony.

Action, not assurances required

To add teachers to the mix only on the strength of government assurances without requisite protection would be murderous at best. We, as a people have sacrificed enough in life and livelihood, that the government now needs to shape up and actively work to prevent avoidable deaths.

Where employers are insistent to the detriment of employee health and safety, it is not enough to offer platitudes of reasonableness, there should be laws to directly protect an employee without running through bureaucratic hoops.

I am afraid, the UK government is still failing to distinguish itself in tackling this virus. Bullshit and bluster do not cut it, neither does propaganda or spin, people need to know they are safe, they will not be led to the slaughter for a cause the government has failed to persuade us of.

Maybe, the Houses of Parliament should fully resume, let the leaders lead by example and maybe, just maybe, we might all by appearance and confirmation come out of our foxholes and play the game they want us to play.

#Coronavirus: They cannot spin out of the fact that 29,491 people have died

The numbers do not lie

There is no need for extraneous analysis, just the facts of the numbers that do not lie and for all the sophistry, bombast, jingoism, exceptionalism, optimism that my government can offer with their deft prowess at spin and propaganda, the Coronavirus pandemic does not do bullshit.

Today, 693 souls were added to the dead, bringing those who perished at the ravaging menace of the pandemic to 29,491 people. This is now the highest in Europe, exceeding the Italian carnage by 113 and we were supposedly 4 weeks ahead of Italy for planning purposes and the same time behind not to suffer their tragedies. [BBC News]

 Courtesy of COVID19LIVE.INFO

The magnitude of the pandemic massacre is concerning, but the other figure for all sorts of reasons apart from death rates for confirmed testing running at 15.1% compared to Belgium’s 15.9%, more people are recovering everywhere except for the UK and the Netherlands.

A dearth of talent

I want to wish that in the time of the greatest need for competence, leadership, truth, and direction, the government of Boris Johnson has everything to face down this disaster even if in my view none of that cohort has any redeeming virtue of conduct or example.

Yet, the numbers do not lie, if as we have been told, time and again, they have been following the science that has been unable to save lives and where for whatever reason only 3.2% have been tracked to recovery.

It makes you wonder how long we can tolerate this travesty before there is an insurrection. The convenient slogan of Stay Home, Protect The NHS, Save Lives can only keep us sane, reasonable, and docile before we need good answers for the tough questions.

The way they see us

It is obvious when our policies and decisions are looked at from outside the UK, that we should have been staying home much earlier than the government decided, but having thought the public will not respond to that entreaty the government projected their penchant for dishonesty, lying, untrustworthiness, and hubris on us with the fear we would not trust them and so far, they still cannot be trusted.

Protecting the NHS would have been easier if the Brexit campaign promise of £350 million a week as plastered on their red campaign bus was true. They starved it of funds and readied it for privatisation leaving it at risk of being overwhelmed by the pandemic as tests and protection became a logistical catastrophe exposing the utter ineptitude of this government.

Blood on their dirty hands

Lives would definitely have been saved from infection by the Coronavirus if the government had acted sooner rather than attempt to bullshit their way through a threat that was more than a warning in February and a reality cutting a swathe through our population when a bumbling, fumbling, mumbling, stumbling, and crumbling buffoonery of an oaf flippantly said we should take it on the chin.

Blog - Thought Picnic: The vulnerable to be martyred to the Coronavirus in the UK

For each of the lives lost to the Coronavirus, especially those of frontline staff and the people left unprotected for so long in care homes, their blood is on the hands of these vampires, a war crime has been committed against the British through arrogance and rank incompetence, I hope we will not succumb to momentary amnesia when those responsible for this are called to account.