Criticising the Coronavirus Strategy

You don't have to be a Lisa Nandy fan to agree with her that the government's response to the Coronavirus outbreak is a shambles. A few weeks ago, their effort presented as the epitome of sensible sensiblism: track down people who'd been exposed to infection, test, isolate, and do the same for everyone else they came into touch with. And credit where credit is due, one of the reasons we're weeks behind the calamity in Italy is because containment was taken very seriously. Unfortunately, as we pass from handling a few dozen infections to thousands of ill, it's evident there are serious shortcomings in the government's approach. And you don't need a medical degree to take them to task for it.

On the media, the government's behaviour is nothing less than disgraceful. On Saturday evening, Matt Hancock's latest musings on Coronavirus - not unimportant considering he's the health secretary - were initially hidden behind the Telegraph paywall. If that wasn't bad enough, the government have indulged one of Boris Johnson's favourite tools, the anonymous briefing, to test the water for quarantine measures. The latest getting a flotation was the four month at-home containment for the over 70s. There is a website, but much more is needed. Meanwhile, Johnson appears strangely reluctant to be seen leading from the front. A couple of press conferences and handwashing photo opps are the sum total of his visibility. We know he likes to hide away when times are tough, but this is hardly the Churchillian countenance one would expect from a PM who affects to incarnate his bulldog spirit. Likewise, there is no public health advertising campaign along the lines of what we saw during the HIV/AIDS crisis - no full page adverts in the papers, no information bulletins on the terrestrial TV channels, no leaflet drops. That, however, unfolded over a period of months and years. Coronavirus is an emergency changing from day-to-day, so it's about bloody time our half-arsed, part-time Prime Minister showed some urgency with a day-to-day briefing.

The second problem is the government's secretive approach, which has undermined trust by sapping public confidence in what they're doing. A bunch of idiot hacks have put out their "oh, we all have PhDs in epidemiology now" to criticisms churning about social media, but in an emergency situation where information is lacking people will not take the reticence of the government as proof that all is hunky dory and we must follow the lead of the experts. Johnson can waffle on about "the science" as much as he likes, but his job is to manage the biopolitics, and he's making a hash of it. The good news is the data and the projections will shortly get published, which might lend itself to more informed commentary and debate.

I say might, because the government's crisis narrative hasn't been particularly coherent either. Preferring the intermittent announcement with nothing accompanying the daily death and infection rate, all we know is the government want to flatten the contagion curve to relieve pressure on the NHS now, crammed as it is with patients suffering the usual seasonal ailments. Okay - bump along the infection a few months so it gives the time for the NHS to stockpile, get more beds in, prevent it from getting overwhelmed, and all the rest of it. But then we're informed the government doesn't want to close schools and universities because they're worried it will store up a second viral explosion for when winter approaches. Excuse me? Which is it? We're asked to trust the government, but neither they nor the experts have set out why the extensive restrictions we see in France, Ireland, Denmark and elsewhere are not appropriate to the UK. Then there is the herd immunity strategy - the idea we keep the oldies locked up and let Coronavirus do its worst with the rest of the population, and once it's over they can come out again and mingle, safe in the knowledge everyone else has had it and can no longer be transmitted. How does this sit with the prevention and delay strategies? Or the risk to immunosuppressed younger people and those with underlying conditions? What a mess.

The government know complacency isn't a good look, hence the trailing of draconian measures modelled on the Danish response. But look further. When Matt Hancock says they're doing everything in their power to manage the crisis, are they? There's talk of taking back retired nurses and doctors to make up shortfalls as existing medical staff tend to Coronavirus demand, but have these former workers been contacted? Where do they go to volunteer? And how many does the govt suppose are going to come out of retirement for the duration of the crisis, especially when most of them are old enough to be in the high risk groups? How about making sure the health service has everything it needs? Rishi Sunak pledged the cash, but we need respirators as a matter of urgency. We need more beds. The govt plan on requisitioning private hospital beds, ensuring these providers adequately compensated (of course). As for the respirators, Robert Peston reports that the government are yet to contact Rolls Royce. You know, that small Derby-based advanced manufacturing concern responsible for two per cent of the UK's total exports and more than capable of switching production. As soon as it became clear Coronavirus would not be contained in China, why weren't preparations in train weeks ago?

Coronavirus might be indifferent to who it infects, but some people are more exposed than others and this is where the sectional character of this government stands indecently exposed. It will be easier to access social security, and those on JSA won't be required to attend regular Job Centre interviews said Johnson last week. But still nothing about protecting employees who take time off ill. Nothing about statutory sick pay for the self-employed, or those on short time working and zero hour contracts. Nothing about mortgage and rent relief. And yet the rail companies and airlines queue up for corporate welfare hand outs, and on past experience are likely to get it. The left have long argued the Tories' affected concern for the north is prolewash, and they've more or less conceded that themselves, but to see it manifest nakedly in their Coronavirus strategy is breathtaking. Compounding these matters of class is the awful Tory legacy of attacks on the public sector. Any infrastructure for mass testing has been decimated thanks to their closure of walk-in centres, nurses driven out by pressure of work and recruitment shot by introducing tuition fees, the billions wasted on the internal market, and council public health budgets raided by cash strapped authorities. The Tories have severely hampered the state's capacity to act in an emergency by gutting its capabilities and handing services over to Tory donors. A summation of Tory decadence for which we will all pay the price.

You don't have to be an epidemiologist to criticise the government's approach and we - the left - aren't criticising for the sake of being critical. In this one instance, we all want Johnson and the Tories to succeed. We want to government to keep down infection, save as many lives as possible, and ensure we come out of this crisis the other end. The problem is because of the choices he and his party have made and are still making, hundreds of thousands are getting exposed to unnecessary risk. If the left doesn't put its own critique of Johnson's obvious inadequacies out there, the conspiracy theorists, the reactionaries, and the racists will. Questions of power and policy doesn't stop when there's a nationwide medical emergency, when we're in a life and death situation. Politics becomes all the more present and potent because of it.