Covid Inquiry

I am left feeling sorry for Patrick Vallance, it must have been immensely frustrating being given no direction. He comes across in his evidence as very professional.

Anyone listening to Sir Patrick Vallance today? I know many of us realised how shambolic Johnson’s approach to the pandemic was but it seems it was even worse than we thought. Did he also say that Sunak said it was ok to let people die, too, or did I miss hear? It was always obvious that ‘eat out to help out’ was a ridiculous idea but then the economy was always more important to them than people’s lives.

I think the difference between you and Johnson, MOnica is that you are aware of your difficulties but try your best to overcome them.

Listening to Mark Sedwill's (former Cabinet Secretary) evidence to the Inquiry and reading the transcript to make sure that I'd heard aright, it is evident that Johnson had to be practically forced into making decisions and Sedwill had to ensure that once he'd made a decision the mechanisms of government wouldn't let him change it at a whim.
I would copy and paste the relevant section but my ipad won't let me. It's on p30 of the transcript.

It's couched in civil service speak, but is very telling.

covid19.public-inquiry.uk/documents/transcript-of-module-2-public-hearing-on-08-november-2023/

Doing your best doesn't mean doing it well. I am contributing to the thread on 'Clumsiness' I have dyspraxia, and there are a lot of things - like sewing or handwriting - that despite putting my best effort in the final result is not very good, in fact at times it is atrocious.

M0nica

Well, Boris is no spring chicken. He was over 50 when the pandemic struck. How would he have reacted, if te decision was not to admit him to hospital, there were so many younger people in need. He would just have to stay at No 10, tuck himself in bed, take paracetamol and hope for the best.

I thought similarly. However, I believe he sees himself as 'exclusive' - as one of his former tutors said of him, he thinks he should be free of the network of obligation that binds everyone.

The teacher also said Johnson believes it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception.

These observations were allegedly made by his classics master to Stanley Johnson in 1982, in a report. They've been aired frequently, but cut no ice with his (Johnson's) admirers who, I believe, will bend themselves out of shape in order to justify his behaviour. They firmly believe he was "doing his best".

He certainly was. Doing his best to get COVID off the front-pages so he could focus on GBD in order to placate his 'majority' who probably would've had his guts for garters if he'd 'betrayed' them by pausing the Brexit negotiations - a move suggested by the EU so that he could focus on the developing crisis of COVID. A sensible and logical move, but one that would have diminished his standing along the so-called red-wall. And he wasn't prepared to risk that for the sake of old people who should basically just have FOAD, graciously accepting their demise as part of "nature's" plan!

Well, Boris is no spring chicken. He was over 50 when the pandemic struck. How would he have reacted, if te decision was not to admit him to hospital, there were so many younger people in need. He would just have to stay at No 10, tuck himself in bed, take paracetamol and hope for the best.

COVID is just nature's way of dealing with old people

Although old people do succumb to disease and illness - inevitably - how can anyone read that and not be aware of the utter disregard, indifference and, yes - dehumanising contempt - for the older generation?

... old people are simply a nuisance factor to be 'dealt' with...

If you take that 'philosophy' to its logical conclusion - how does or did he feel about the vulnerable sick people, of any age, who were also more likely to be seriously ill, or die, from COVID - was that also nature's way of dealing with that burdensome demographic?

When you start dehumanising old people, it's a dangerous trajectory to go down. I think it's hideous.

Apparently Lady Hallet is hoping to publish initial findings early ish next year.

That is utterly depressing MaizieD. I really do hope the Stage 1 Covid Inquiry report is released before the election.

I was just going to post this Maizie- just incredible. And still, some here say that Johnson was a Hero in the Covid crisis. Going it alone on the vaccine cost vast amounts of money- as the UK had to pay much more than the EU buying in bulk. And all in vain as people, and in particular our generation and older, were NOT protected- and just sent down the chute.

Just disgusting. I do hope many will watch this video, because it is all based on fact and real messages, not 'opinion'.

Led By Donkeys has produced a new video based on evidence from the Covid Inquiry so far.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjPbfryCAs0

MaizieD

^As I recall very little was done by government about 'Asian flu' under MacMillan. It was quite virulent and at one point over 20 pupils in my class were absent.^

Different times, Grantanow.

Interesting though:

www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31201-0/fulltext

( I wasn't in your class, but I got it... I was only 7, I've never had flu since...)

Thanks for the Lancet reference which bears out that little was done by the government. As you say, different times. We expect better now.

Re BJs so called skill set - the phrase bish bash bosh comes to mind...

DiamondLily I'm really sorry to hear about your losses. Your story is replicated by many across the country. 💐

Sorry and sad to read your covid losses DiamondLily. Virus infections are unpredictable. I had flu over the millenium. I’d had my flu jab (I’m CEV so always take up vax) . That year, the vax didn’t prevent the particular flu variant. People who claim to have staggered into work with flu only had a bad cold, flu puts you in bed.

Covid seems to hit people differently. Two friends are recovering, he was quite ill and is still exhausted, his wife out and about.

As for Johnson and his government, they’re the mos ineffective, macho load of self congratulating superficial lazy etc etc I’ve lived through

My Dad died of Covid in 2020, because the care home he was in was put at risk by hospital patients being sent there. He died alone on the very day Johnson and co held a garden party.

DH died this year, despite having had all the vaccines, of Covid.

Can't say I'm impressed with any of it.😡

Whereas Covid comes on more slowly, you gradually realise that the cough is increasing and you feel less and less well. When I had it, you had to go to a test centre to get tested and wait a couple of days for an email to say if you had it. All that took about ten days, then another week at home feeling worse and worse before hospital admission.
Nowadays we’d know more quickly because of self testing at home.

I had flu once, in the 70s, it came on very quickly on Christmas morning. It hits you like a sledgehammer. I hope never to have it again.

Callistemon I can remember the Asian flu epidemic, I and my sister were at boarding school, teachers and pupils were, as they say, going down like flies, in the end the school closed for a fortnight.

DS and I returned to the army base where we lived. None of us, my parents, me or my sisters caught the Asian flu. In fact none of us have had or had flu at all in our lives. I have read sonewhere that about 40-45% of the population have a natural immunity to flu.

Callistemon21

Obviously I missed the spelling tests.

September

The Asian flu is a bit of a diversion, but I have been reading the evidence of Sir Christopher Wormald, Permanent Secretary of the DHSC, and it is evident that early on in 2020 the Department thought that their 2011 pandemic flu planning would be sufficient for covid. Despite the fact that it is a completely different virus from the flu virus.
Though the significance of the fact that covid and flu are both respiratory viruses spread by aerosols seems to have passed them by in their planning.

But, looking at the Lancet article I linked to earlier, which is something of a history of flu pandemics, it seems as though the aerosol route of infection has never been taken particularly seriously by our health authorities.

Gordon Brown was on the radio a lot at the start of the pandemic. I found him very sensible and reassuring.

Obviously I missed the spelling tests.

September

Grantanow

MaizieD

Reading Dicken's recent post, and thinking about other posts on this thread, I don't think that any PM, or opposition leader, in my lifetime (and I'm thinking of perhaps from MacMillan onwards) would have ignored the onset of a global pandemic (and the evidence from China and Italy of the deadly nature of the new virus) in order to sort out their divorce settlement and to, allegedly, start writing a book.. fail to attend the meetings of COBR, the body for dealing with emergencies, and suggest that as other countries were panicking unnecessarily the UK could ignore the pandemic to take the opportunity to corner a large chunk of global trade...

I think that every single one of them, up to and including Theresa May and the current LOTO, would have taken a highly responsible stance right from the start...

As I recall very little was done by government about 'Asian flu' under MacMillan. It was quite virulent and at one point over 20 pupils in my class were absent.

Most of my class were off with Asian flu except for three of us; it was Seotembef/October 1957 I think. They all returned after two or three weeks, then two of us succumbed, one girl didn't catch it at all.
When the majority returned they resumed lessons and we just had to catch up on lessons as best we could by copying other people's notes.

MayBee70

What exactly is Boris Johnson’s skill set?

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