Following the Science

Concern is growing about HM Government’s handling of the pandemic. 

This adds to the already heavy burden on normal people in dealing with the dangers of a highly contagious virus for which has no curative vaccine has been found. 

As the U.K’s death toll reaches record levels and the PM promotes the easing of restrictions, commentators at home and abroad question the direction of the country’s leadership.

Following “the halting prolixity, waffle and intellectual confusion” of the PM’s reply to the new leader of the Labour Party about the abandonment of community testing, a Times[i] journalist and former Conservative MP posed this question.  

“It’s time to ask whether Boris Johnson is up to the job.”  The ever affable and polite Matthew Parris can be direct and to the point.

Searching questions are not the sole preserve of British experts.  Reports from Europe and America reveal equally disquieting criticism of our Government’s handling of the pandemic.[ii]  

Failings articulated by observers abroad include the following: 

·         the worst death rate in Europe

·         an underfunded and unprepared NHS

·         the herd immunity theory (espoused on 13 March by chief scientific officer Patrick Vallance)

·         the unchecked spread of infections from hospitals to care homes

·         the opposition to “Stay Alert” in Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland

·         lateness to enter into confinement and

·         the lack of testing despite the presence of expertise within the U.K.

To these, one might add the belated addition by Westminster on 18 May of loss of taste and smell to the symptoms of Covid-19.  Scientific advisors told Government to list it[iii] alongside breathing difficulties, a new continuous cough and fever.

The London editor of the Irish Times reports on the “growing unease within the (Conservative) party and inside the government itself about its handling of the crisis.[iv]” 

He quotes Newcastle University expert Allyson Pollock, a member of SAGE which had warned of 250,000 prospective deaths because of the original mitigation approach, adding her comments about current Government panic.

Whereas the U.K. abandoned community testing on 12 March, other countries such as Germany and Ireland retained contact tracing, testing and isolation.  

Contacts of people testing positive continue to be assiduously traced, as likewise infected contacts are traced and isolated - to prevent the spread of their infection.  

The benefits of applying scientific method are clear.  Whereas the infection rate (“R”) across the U.K. has fallen to below 1, in Ireland R has sat at 0.5 since the end of March.[v]  Rigorous contract tracing is the fundamental prerequisite of the World Health Organisation for nations, and particularly as they risk the easing of restrictions.

MPs themselves are criticising the Government for its inadequate ability to test the British public throughout the pandemic.[vi]   Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee said that capacity had not been increased “early or boldly enough.”

Whereas Ireland has completed testing of residents and staff in all care homes recently, Northern Ireland has announced belated plans to test all residents and staff in care homes in June.[vii]  

This follows earlier criticism of the accuracy of reported death statistics in GB and Northern Ireland.  Figures[viii] produced by Northern Ireland’s Health Department have been excluding fatalities occurring in the community and in nursing homes.

Ireland introduced its daily briefings to the media and public a couple of weeks before the U.K. with theirs being presented every day by a team of medical officials without politicians attending.  Public policy announcements are delivered separately by the Taoiseach and Health Minister, following the science. 

The U.K’s briefings are led either by the PM, the Health Secretary or other high-ranking member of the Cabinet, flanked by a pair of scientists in supportive roles.

The U.K.’s reputation sits under a microscope.  

Other British journalists have cited an example that links the pandemic and the Government’s Brexit policy of withdrawing from European regulatory controls.    

They say that the “ability of Britain to lead global research into Covid-19 risks being fatally undermined if UK crashes out of EU without a trade deal[ix]” by the end of 2020.  This prospect would lead, for example, to the loss of access to Horizon Europe funding scheme from which UK is the major beneficiary.

For the country which presented arguments about its economic might as a vote winner to divorce from the EU, this first test of its newly declared independence raises questions about the Government’s capacity for crisis management.   

The efforts of “the world’s fifth largest economy” to “save lives” look inadequate.  Small nations such as New Zealand, South Korea and Greece are doing much better on the life-saving criterion. 

What science has the U.K. been following?  

One modeller has concluded that 30,000 lives would have been saved had the U.K. lockdown started on 16 rather 23 March.[x]

The week before questioning the PM’s competence, Matthew Parris took our politicians to task.[xi]  No longer is it sufficient for our political leaders to “hide behind the science.”   

His argument is that 

“they’re afraid to take ownership of the trade-offs that only politics can settle: trade-offs between deaths caused by one disease and deaths caused by others less immediately in the public eye; between the longevity of the elderly and the education of the young; between mortality now and debt that will scar a whole generation; between loss of life and loss of livelihood. Their evasion is not pretty and if they think the public are not beginning to notice they are wrong.”

U.K. citizens do notice.  

As a captive audience - locked down - people want reassurance from Government, an exit strategy which is unambiguous and evidence-based.  

Despite the PM’s promotion of a changed message from Stay at Home to Stay Alert, the reactions of the British public suggest otherwise, risk aversion.  Visitor businesses in Cumbria and parents of P1 and P6 schoolchildren speak for many, an indication of a lack of confidence in the PM’s stance.

The state of public confidence in Government was evident at the start of the pandemic and remains so two months on.   

The early lockdown was marked by panic-selling of shares by stockbrokers and panic-buying of toilet rolls by normal people; its easing, likewise, is being marked by public alarm at lives not saved as people feel apprehensive about Government’s ability to take back control.

©Michael McSorley 2020

Postscript:-

This series about Covid-19 comprises of 4 articles to date:- 

Part 1 (24 March 2020) A Test for Elected Leaders[xii] 

Part 2 (11 April 2020) Coping with Contagion, a Survival Strategy.[xiii]

Part 3 (30 April 2020) The New Vocabulary[xiv]

Part 4 (21 May 2020) Following the Science

PostPostscript - evidence during the week June 6-12 2020 of pandemic handling & impact:

·         Friday 12 June report by ONS of a drop in UK GDP 20.4[i]% in April, the first full month of UK lockdown, and its largest monthly contraction on record; 

·         Wednesday 10 June report by the OECD of an 11.5% hit to UK economy from Covid, among the worst rates[ii] of the major nations; also the OECD’s comment that the UK figure is compounded by looming prospect of trade deal failure, with its recommendation of temporary extension of EU Single Market to mitigate impact; 

·         Wednesday 10 June report of evidence from the epidemiologist Prof Neil Ferguson (Imperial College London) telling HoC Committee of MPs that earlier lockdown[iii] would have at least halved death toll; his conclusion was endorsed by Chief Scientist to the UK Government 2000-07 Sir David King on BBC2 Newsnight[iv];  

·         Article on Saturday 6 June 2020 by Times journalist Matthew Parris critiquing PM[v]: - “Boris Johnson never had any judgement or strategic vision... his powers of concentration have always been weak... he was only ever a shallow opportunist with a minor talent to amuse...”

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[i] BBC News 12 June “UK Economy shrinks a record 20.4% in April due to Lockdown” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53019360

[ii] BBC News 10 June “UK Economy could be among worst hit among leading nations”  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52991913

[iii] BBC News 10 June “Earlier Lockdown Would have Halved death Toll”  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52995064

[iv] BBC2 Newsnight 10 June 2020 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000jyjz/newsnight-10062020

[v] The Times Matthew Parris 6 June 2020 “Johnson has been tested and found wanting. The marriage of convenience between the PM and his party is not likely to survive the years of difficulty that lie ahead”

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[i] The Times 9 May 2020 p 23 Matthew Parris “Johnson needs to take control of the cockpit...we need the captain to stop the blustering and talk to us like grown ups.”

[ii] Guardian 12 May 2020 Patrick Wintour “UK takes a pasting from world’s press over coronavirus crisis” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/12/uk-takes-a-pasting-from-worlds-press-over-coronavirus?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR3tdYbV2pdjnN2EP4EZSrxqAIKd-f68X4NjK-3lVQgr8twjO_g5K9YbV5s#Echobox=1589286505

[iii] BBC News 18 May 2020

[iv] Irish Times 16 May 2020 Denis Staunton “They’re in a panic because they’re making it up as they go along”

[v] RTE News 16 May 2020

[vi] BBC News 19 May 2020 “UK too slow to increase testing capacity say MPs”  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52716828

[vii] Belfast Telegraph 18 May 2020 David Young https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus/covid-19-testing-for-all-staff-and-residents-in-northern-ireland-care-homes-announced-39212185.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BT:DailyNews&hConversionEventId=AQEAAZQF2gAmdjQwMDAwMDE3Mi0yN2Y0LWExMDctYTM2ZC1lNTE2M2VkMGFiODHaACQ0Zjg3ZWY5Zi0xYzI1LTQ2ODAtMDAwMC0wMjFlZjNhMGJjY2PaACQ3MjRhNWEwOC0yMGJkLTQwMGYtYTk5Zi1hZDRkMjQ3ZDIyNzZUjE_yhCG64EO8abQGr9sRgwTupmFNEEWYEzh1i6M3sA

[viii] Belfast Telegraph Adrian Rutherford 2 May 2020 https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus/true-scale-of-coronavirus-tragedy-emerges-as-new-figures-put-ni-deaths-at-30-higher-than-first-reported-39174622.html

[ix] Observer 3 May 2020 Toby Helm & Robin McKie

[x] Guardian 19 May 2020 “The UK Government was ready for this pandemic. Until it sabotaged its own system” George Monbiot quoting modeller James Annan 

[xi] The Times 25 April 2020 p 23 Matthew Parris “Ministers can’t keep hiding behind the science.”

[xii] https://michaelcovid19.blogspot.com/2020/03/a-test-for-elected-leaders.html

[xiii] https://michaelcovid19.blogspot.com/2020/04/coping-with-contagion-survival-strategy.html

[xiv] https://michaelcovid19.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-new-vocabulary.html