Opinion piece by Dr. Chris Butler, Shipley CND
Here in the middle of May we are still struggling to cope with the deadly Coronavirus, Covid 19. The outbreak started in Wuhan, China. The Western Intelligence Agencies were alerted in November 2019. Taiwan was already checking visitors from Wuhan in late December. The UK health secretary was not even briefed until 3rd January. At that time Johnson was on holiday in the Caribbean. It was brought to his attention on 7th January. The first Cobra meeting specifically on Covid 19 was not until 24 January. Boris did not attend. He has missed 5 Cobra meetings.
In October 2016 NHS England participated in Exercise Cygnus a three day exercise looking at the impact of a pandemic influenza outbreak. Exercise Cygnus showed that the NHS resources would be critically overstretched in such a pandemic. More recently the National Risk Assessment urged the Government to fully prepare for a pandemic, to stockpile PPE, organise advanced purchase agreements for other essential kit , establish procedures for disease surveillance , testing and contact tracing and draw up plans to manage a surge in excess deaths.
As the number of cases rose together with the death toll lock down was imposed. The instructions for this were very imprecise. People were told to work from home, where possible, unless they were essential workers. Again this was not defined. Schools did not initially close although they later did. Offices, factories, shops, pubs and restaurants closed although the Cheltenham Race meeting did go ahead. Sporting fixture were cancelled or postponed. People were told to stay at home, wash their hands frequently, and stay at least 2 meters away from other people, called social distancing.
Since that time Johnson, who did not follow agreed procedure regarding shaking hands, contracted the virus, was admitted to hospital, required treatment in Intensive Care, then self isolated for 2 weeks in his country retreat.
Since that time we have had a rag, tag and bobtail gang telling us what to do, particularly in the absence of Johnson. We have had scientist, medical experts, many in the pay of the Government, showing us graphs with lines going up and down. We have discovered we don’t have enough ventilators, Personal Protective Equipment, some of which is anyway unsuitable. We are not testing enough people for the virus, particularly those in Care Homes where the staff and the elderly resident are particularly at risk. We have heard about herd immunity where people are allowed to become infected to protect others. We have been regaled with stories of the search for a vaccine, even though it may take a year to produce. No mention was made of the search for effective anti-viral drugs to treat patients now or the need for contact tracing , tracking down people who have been in contact with infected people and testing them. There has been confusion over how long people should be socially isolated, 1 week or 2 ? Public transport has been partially nationalised. Arms manufacturers have diversified to producing socially useful medical kit instead of weapons of mass murder. Defence diversification. “Nightingale Hospitals” have been “built”, i.e. by converting other buildings into hospitals, including one in east London, the ExCel Centre, normally used to house the gigantic Arms Fair where you can buy weapons of mass destruction. Arms to ploughshares. The Government have lied about the number of tests being conducted and the procurement of PPE, as for example that from Turkey. When this finally arrived it was found to be totally unsuitable.
We are now advised that instead of staying at home we must stay alert. For most people this seems to mean back to normal. Forget social isolation, do as you please. Open up the schools so we can spread the virus more effectively. Return to unsafe work. Travel on unsafe public transport. Wait until the number of positive tests and deaths starts to rise again, as it will.
All this spells out to me a total cock-up. Piss ups in breweries springs to mind. We are being led by the totally clueless, totally incompetent, totally untruthful. We have the highest number of infections and deaths in Europe. We are second only to the USA, in the world. How can we trust this bunch of idiots? Anyone who has worked with dangerous viruses knows you have to test, contact trace, isolate and treat the subjects, using effective, appropriate PPE. This elementary fact is only just being accepted by Boris and co.
Which brings me to my second concern. Let us not forget that our elected Prime Minister, one Boris Johnson, is the man with his finger on the nuclear button. This man has the power to start a nuclear war. If he can make so many mistakes over the Coronavirus pandemic can we trust him to rationally assess whether he should push that button and start a nuclear war, a move that would kill us all. NO WE CANNOT ! This my friends is another very, very, very powerful argument for getting rid of ALL nuclear weapons. When these weapons of mass destruction are in the hands of the likes of Boris Johnson we must definitely get rid of ALL of them. Otherwise we are all DOOMED.
