Playing the Covid Blame Game

It's oft been the contention of this place that while the Tories have horribly mismanaged the pandemic, they have proven themselves past masters at handling the politics. They've determined the timetable, defined the framing, sucked the sting out of procurement corruption, and effectively depoliticised their missteps by throwing the responsibility for infection onto the atomised individual. Transmission is not a result of lapses in government policy but a matter of bad luck or personal irresponsibility. It might be wearing a bit thin now following the unforced errors of Boris Johnson and Dishy Rishi. Declaring last week they wouldn't be self-isolating after coming into contact with an infectious Sajid Javid, they quickly u-turned as soon as they realised it was electoral kryptonite for the punters. But it has damaged them. The latest YouGov has reported the evaporation of their polling lead from 13 points to four in the space of a fortnight, whereas Survation sees it whittled down from 11 to just two in the same period.

Still, Tory necropolitics carry on regardless of what happens to the polls. Which brings us to the seemingly immovable obstacle to the government's vaccination strategy: the young. On top of Johnson's vaccine-passport-for-nightclubs plan, The Times reported this morning how they're being considered for university students and perhaps also football matches. Apparently, with take up among the 18-24s stubbornly stuck under 60% Johnson's chewing up the new Downing Street furnishings. No lamp shade, sofa, or rug is safe. And as such case rates are highest among this age group.

Why the reticence? Why aren't younger people queuing around the block for their jabs? A glance at anti-vax mobilisations, like the one in London last weekend, doesn't show an over-preponderance of zoomers. It seems most are far too sensible to fall for this stupidity. That said, periodic polling about attitudes to the pandemic seem to suggest the youngest cohorts are the most vaccine reluctant, and sceptical of lockdowns and legally-mandated precautions. In Johnson's rare honest moments, he does acknowledge how the young have borne the brunt of this crisis, so how to make sense of the disproportionate rejection?

A government study into compliance from April this year throws in some clues. Part of it is experience. As the young are more likely to have had to work through the pandemic thanks to the gaping holes left in the furlough scheme, most have not contracted the disease. This can help inculcate a sense of laissez-faire, a feeling this is much ado about nothing. And then we have the government's own advice. This time last year the reckless and stupid Eat Out to Help Out scheme was about to launch, and Johnson went on the record saying people should return to their workplaces, while at the same time keeping restrictions on other activities. This was reinforced by both the subsequent lockdowns. The government acted as though workplaces were magically inoculated against Covid while the family home, each other's houses, the coffee shop, and wherever young people meet were super-spreader events in waiting. Mixed messaging only muddied matters.

Another key finding was the well-known risk the pandemic presented the old and the chronically ill, and therefore wasn't much of a problem for the young and physically fit. If this was the case, then why the restrictions on meeting up with friends, provided one was careful and didn't pass it onto elderly or infirm family members? This didn't appear to make much sense, and especially so as testing capacity expanded and risk could be managed somewhat. Looking at the data in a bit more depth, most young people found the rules easy to follow and abided by the mask mandate indoors, social distancing of strangers outside, and (mostly) kept to meeting restrictions. Hardly a generation of carefree libertines acting like useful friends of Covid.

If the young want to do the right thing, why the vaccine hesitancy? Ultimately, the fault lies with government. On the one hand there has been enough vaccine-related swill around social media to give people pause when it comes to the uncertainty over side-effects. We're not talking about disinformation or great reset junk but the failure of the Tories to come out hard on vaccine safety - something not at all helped by the debate around whether AstraZeneca is safe for the under 30s and the decision to switch to other vaccines. In the middle of a pandemic, to see the government panic and twiddle its thumbs before hastily changing the advice is not going to command confidence. And the second is inescapably linked to this. The young are less likely to get seriously ill, but rather than noting this in passing the government and their press helpers have positively amplified this message. If Covid is a case of the sniffles and a sore throat, many young people are going to conclude that taking a risk on a jab isn't worth it. Despite the dangers of long Covid, and worrying consequences even mild infections might have down the line - such as Parkinson's and other neurological disorders. We like to think we live in an irreverent age, but people do listen to government guidance when it's not dressed up in the language of politics point-scoring, and the Tories are to be damned for not talking about these very real risks.

A public health failure? Absolutely. But the politics? Not so. Despite being the bedrock and the salt of the earth, young people are getting lined up as the latest Covid scapegoats in the Tories' endless will to divide and rule. It happened last year. News bulletins and tabloid websites carried footage of illegal house parties, which were amplified by what is left of the local press. Raves in the wood, the number of arrests, it was a constant drip, drip avidly lapped up by target demographics. This, it was said, was the driver of infections through July to September. Nothing at all to do with the young people working in hospitality serving up dinners to the Covid careless at the chancellor's behest. A year on the situation is the same. Most infections are among the young, they're the ones now filling up the acute respiratory wards, and as shops and leisure reopen are, again, disproportionately exposed. But because of how the low vaccine take up is being spun and will be spun, the politics are being sucked out and this very serious problem will be put down to irresponsible and stupid choices, helpfully highlighted by tabloid tales of family anxiety and woe. "Our 20-something bar manager son refuses to take the vaccine!". You can count on celebrities sharing their pain as well., with the cumulative effect of an impression of carelessness and selfishness.

The Tories never let a crisis go to waste. The prospect of tens of thousands of young people contracting a debilitating illness, for some leading to life-long complications, and the chance of hundreds of more unnecessary deaths is no different.

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