Sharing the cost of covid-19 - FAIRLY!

THE huge cost of coronavirus needs to be shared fairly by the population of Britain and in accordance with their means. Only income tax can do this. Any other means is unfair and falls most heavily on those least able to pay - hard working families, the poor and pensioners on fixed incomes. And at the same time is most easily avoided or reduced by those most wealthy and able to pay.

For that reason I was horrified to hear my local council considering raising council tax to meet such costs! This is the most unfair tax of all, levied solely on the worth of a property which for vast numbers of people is not in any way connected to their ability to pay.

So I have further copied my letter to my MP, the Rt Hon James Cleverly with suitable additional comments. I sincerely hope others may feel inclined to take similar action. 

TEXT BEGINS: 

Dear Mr Cleverly,

You may have seen that I wrote this week to the Halstead Gazette regarding the costs of the coronavirus response and in particular how this may impact local councils. While my points were  directed specifically at the Braintree District Council they represent an opinion which I believe may be much more widely held.

I would ask you in your position as a local MP and former chair of the Conservative Party to look into this issue and to defend your local constituents against what may prove to be an unfair burden when compared to the national emergency. Indeed, a post code lottery, as our media friends are inclined to title such attacks on the hard working, the poorer and the pensioner.

TEXT OF LETTER: I was horrified to read that Braintree Council is considering raising council tax to pay for the cost of coronavirus. This has been a national emergency and  all the costs should be handled nationally. That way it can be evenly and fairly spread across all tax payers including the filthy rich. Instead a council tax hike will fall unfairly and unevenly on the hard working and the poorer as well as pensioners.

Typical Tory policy of course for Government to dodge its responsibilities and leave the locals to pick up the pieces,

Shame on you if you go ahead instead of fighting this shambolic Government. ENDS

What is wrong with this Government? Can it not get anything right?

I was writing this as Johnson announced further relaxations...

At the outset I have to confess a serious distrust of all Tories and a horror of corruption in high places. So there is no chance I shall be soft in my criticism of Johnson and co. Still less when they have committed the cardinal sin of allowing a special adviser to take such extraordinary control over governmental affairs.

And of course panic causes strange effects. And there has never been more reason for panic than the onset of a killer virus that is a global pandemic. And one for which there is no obvious treatment and as yet no real sign of a vaccine.

But frankly events of the past few months go much further than mere failure to come up to scratch in the extraordinarily tough environment of a global catastrophe.

It all started with the utterly insane idea of 'herd immunity'. For that you need 60-70% of your sample to have had the disease AND be guaranteed immune. That might be OK for the common cold but this things kills and leaves others virtually disabled for life. And while spread is uncomfortably fast it is also too slow to wait that long. The man who said it should have been removed as far from the levers of power as possible. The Isle of Rockall for example. But instead they invited him in... and he is still here!

At my age and with my experience of emergency planning I am utterly astonished at the mess we have got ourselves in. Until, that is, I consider the previous decade of austerity.

Emergencies are planned for. That is a given, or should be. They always happen. Usually at the worst possible time. But this is what you have a Civil Service for. Complete with scientific and medical and technological and logistical expertise to look into the future, judge the need, and provide the essentials.

But the Tories are notoriously bad at planning ahead. And even worse at spending in advance of need. And worse still at laying the foundations of a public and welfare state.

So in the years of austerity they have cut and cut again. And those cuts have more than decimated our levels of preparedness. Made far worse by an accountancy juggle called Just In Time. And another called Current Cost Accounting.

Let me explain a little. Under older regimes you bought in advance what you needed for say one year's production, generation, activity, emergency. And stockpiled it. This was, the bean counters considered too costly. Expensive warehouses, armies of men with clip boards checking date, lifetime etc.

How much better they said to make it when you need it. So empty the warehouses, sack the checkers. Calculate your costs on the real costs, not cost plus storage and maintenance. Prices will come down. Prices did not come down. You may have noticed a steady rise.

And then there was the cost of building stuff. Depreciation. Build a hospital for £100m and calculate that it would lose value at say £5m a year, reaching zero at 20 years when replacement needed to be considered. But wait. That might be OK for Government but businesses need assets. So value the hospital at the cost of replacement RIGHT NOW. That way the asset would grow year on year and you could borrow squillions against the assets. Privatise those state businesses and guess what? They all use CCA instead of Historic Cost Accounting. They all have inflated asset books and vast debts, protected by assets that are actually not worth much at all.

How does this affect Government and emergency planning? Well for emergencies you need hospitals bigger than you do for day by day activity. So some wards were maintained but kept empty against sudden need. Some Intensive Care Units (or HDUs or whatever) ditto. And a score or two of big stuff like ventilators. If you do not have them when the crisis comes you have to build Nightingale units Just In Time.. too late!

And PPE? Yes of course, millions of items in store, kept under review and replaced as time wore on. Hand it all to the private sector and guess what? They dump it, fail to replace, argue for Just in Time (while actually CCA-ing the stuff!). And yes they did. So no PPE when it is needed. And you are not in the buying club either so a scramble to find it when you need it. People die.

And arrangements to use private services? Not kept up to date so not available at time of need. And so thousands of elderly crisis patients are sent back to care home to make space in the hospitals for the crisis you failed to plan for. And thousands die in agony, killing many of their carers.

And now we read of vast millions of contracts placed with unqualified and even insolvent companies to supply critical equipment. And without any safeguarding procedures. And often with mates of cabinet members.

And the much-vaunted Civil Service, who know about all these things and have done for years? Retired, redundant, too costly, austerity.... replaced with unskilled, incompetent special advisers with agendas and secret deals.

You can only blame Johnson and his bunch of buffoons. They were picked for their enthusiasm for Brexit, not their intelligence, experience or proven skills. They are incompetent and inept. They listen too willingly to their backers and their special advisers, fooled into believing these people know best.

Meanwhile the relatively few Tories with real public service ethics have been sidelined or left to grow old and go fallow. There is no way back for a generation. This cadre of clowns has been given five years (FIVE YEARS) to govern by another crackpot decision. They are praying that two things will happen: 1 - we will all forget what utter idiots they were and 2 - that in time they will get the hang of it.

Meanwhile people die, people go hungry, children miss school, families collapse, suicides happen, jobs vanish, food fails to reach the shelves, prices soar, medicines disappear, prices soar, theatre and halls close, libraries vanish, museums get dusty, HS2 never appears but costs squillions, Trident gets replaced but still isn't any use...

Can we really let this go on for another four years?

The who, what, when, and why of letting thousands die in care homes....

ROUGHLY a month ago I wrote about the spiralling deaths in care homes and wondered how it was happening. I even suggested it might be part of the Tory Government strategy to let the deaths rip in care homes rather than add them to the burden threatening to overwhelm the NHS.
Today in the House a new leader of the Labour party finally brought the PM to book on the subject. Oh the mad Tory supporters are busy claiming the advice back in March that care homes were not much at risk from coronavirus was taken out of context. Indeed Johnson lied once again by saying Starmer was wrong.
He was not. As clear as the indecent majority won by Johnson and co the care homes were told not to worry; they were not at significant risk. It was tosh at the time. It has been rubbish all along. And it is now visibly bollocks.
It will be some time before we know what the actual number of covid-19 deaths in care homes is. But it is already well above the numbers quoted by the forensically careful Keir Starmer.
I shall watch that row burn with interest. But today I would like to remind everyone of what all this represents, starting with the fact that people put into care homes are old, sickly, vulnerable and in many cases , alone. And that in the main the care they receive is not about life saving but about life caring and, if hospice does not intervene, providing a peaceful environment in which to slip this mortal coil. It's what they and their families pay for.

So the questions must be:

• WHY in God's name were those found to be ill with covid-19 NOT sent to hospital to receive intensive care and ventilation?
• WHO decided they should instead die an horrific and suffering death while spreading their dread disease among those brave enough to serve them?
• WHO indeed was it who decided that if they did get to hospital but were deemed not worthy of all this they were sent back whence they came, to die a horrific etc etc...
• WHO massaged the figures so that for weeks care home deaths were NOT reported at all?
• WHEN and by whom was that decision finally changed, only for the figures to continue being fudged?
• WHEN were GPs told or guided NOT to list coronavirus on the death certificate but only add it as contributing factor?
• WHEN will Johnson, Hancock and co finally admit the truth?

Out of confusion comes forth obvious guilt....

So my scepticism about the new coronavirus policy was justified. Confusion reigns. Clarity we do not have. And a spike in infection seems highly likely.
Let us start with who should be told first. After discussion and agreement in cabinet (did it happen?) it should be put to Parliament, where it will be further debated and the chance for clarifications can be met. This will be reported on. (This point will recur.) And the devolved nations should be consulted. Clearly they have not as they disagree vehemently with Johnson.
Then the PM or some chosen minister will tell the nation about it. If it warrants that. And they will make an address to the nation. Probably live. To be fair Churchill was often recorded but then his intake of brandy required it so we are told.

So why did Johnson choose to tell the nation first? It can only be for one of two reason or a combination of both.

• First he is not well enough to reliably deliver the message coherently in one take. To be honest he has not looked well since he came out of hospital.
• Second he wanted to ensure clarity and avoid the risk that reportage from a contentious House of Commons might be confusing.

Well the first is OK but frankly this tiny jiggering of the rules and wholesale loss of clarity could have seriously done with some testing in the House.
There is a third available explanation.  Johnson wanted to take credit for the first steps in lifting the lockdown; to be fully identified as the man who did it. Or, to put it another way, Johnson was still playing politics with the life and economy of the nation.

It is now clear that the Government accepts, albeit tacitly, that serious mistakes were made early on. Some even before the pandemic. Emergency stock of PPE was drastically low and under managed. Our capacity for testing, track and trace was similarly depleted, especially against our success in the past.
The NHS was under resourced and what little reserve capacity it had against major emergencies was hopelessly compromised.
But instead of responding rapidly to offset these failings they hesitated. Instead of following the science, as they claim, they delayed doing so. As a result, many things that might have been done as early as February were not done.

• Air travel continued unhindered and has done until now. 
• Major public events were not cancelled. 
• No steps were taken to guard against disaster in the care home. 
• A couple of headline grabbing hospital builds were begun. 

But as late as early March the science was saying lockdown now..They waited again to March 23. Thousands died.
And somewhere the care home situation was allowed to escalate out of control. One could be forgiven for taking the cynical view that I do. The elderly in care homes were NOT offered hospitalisation and thus no ventilators simply to save the NHS. That they could have gone to the Nightingale Hospitals (and still could have until last week) was not it seems considered.
Instead these old, frail people who had lived through the war we so recently lauded, were allowed to lie in their ordinary beds, tended by extraordinary people in less than adequate protective gear, to subside into gasping agony as the disease ate away at their lungs, their kidneys, their livers and finally their lives.
One day, good people of Britain, this man Johnson and his misbegotten gang of fools and rogues must be made to pay.

Do we even know how many have been infected? If not then how do we know...

SOMETHING is wrong with our knowledge of coronavirus. At least in the UK but I think it may be wider. Tonight Michael Gove had the unenviable task of telling us that over 28,500 people in the UK had now died of the covid-19 disease it causes.
And that over 180,000 people had now tested positive for being infected with coronavirus.
That would imply (be sure it is wrong) that the mortality rate for coronavirus is well above 10%. That in fact for every 100 people infected 10 will surely die.
I attach a grim document which tells us the mortality rates for diseases in general.
And sure enough coronavirus is there at line 42. And the current global death rate is calculated at 7%. But it is already, and so far unconfirmed, at the bottom of a horror show of diseases and well above the very next in line - pertussis or whooping cough! Yes really that has a global infant victim mortality rate of 3.7%.
Small pox is lower. Measles is lower. The Spanish flu which killed 20 million or more at the end of the 1914-18 war is lower.
It isn't that simple and the list is complex but I worry. I really do. Because just now it is even higher in the UK at 28k dead out of 180k infected - you do the maths!


The mortality rate for covid-19 is currently much, much higher - but only among those (like me) who are 76 years old with underlying issues: Recovered cancer (leukaemia 2003/4) so two treatments of chemo followed necessarily by one of bone marrow transplant and, now, severe COPD - emphysema and bronchiectasis. My lungs have a life age of 95.
And only because so far we have not the foggiest idea how many people have really been infected. 28k into 18k goes x times; close to 6. Until we do it is vital we keep a sense of proportion. I am no fan of the ridiculous 'herd immunity' idea. That is only possible when an effective treatment is available and/or a vaccine.
So currently for people like me covid-19 is a straightforward, unabashed killer. But it hardly touches children, the young and even the young adults. And vastly more 30-60s survive than die.
What is mortality then? Are we handling this right at all?
Maybe those who get it should be sent to one of two places - hospital and when suitable to the newly minted isolation hospitals - the Nightingale Units.
Maybe with some care lockdown can be eased. Normal life can begin again for most and... well, yes.. it does mean consigning some of us to the grave that is already beckoning. But at least the rest of the world can get a life.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_disease_case_fatality_rates

This is what we need right now to call Government to account

For many decades I have been an avid reader of Private Eye and right now it is doing a far better job of holding Government to account than either the mainstream, the digital or the social media.

Their medical writer(s?) under the pseudonym MD have (has?) this edition done the best job yet of examining the actions - and too many failures - of our national policy. And given I am no expert I am pleased to find that as I have said, following the science does not describe it at all.

From the moment this pandemic reached Britain (whenever that actually was!) errors of policy have followed. For a start of course the emergency supplies of PPE and the 'reserved spare' emergency capacity in the health service had been allowed to wither during ten years of Tory inspired austerity.

On that basis the knee-jerk herd immunity was a disaster. Then came the PPE problem and a devious downgrading of coronavirus to allow lesser protection to, apparently, be allowable.

Then there was the message to care homes – "you have nothing to worry about". In terms of Government intervention they were right. In terms of Covid-19 infection they were woefully wrong.

(MD does not say it but I believe it. That this decision was a cold-blooded means of protecting the weakened and ailing NHS to cope with what was coming. And it now appears to have continued with infected and allegedly recovering care home patients being sent from hospital to care home without testing or tested with a 30% fallible test.)

Testing started. Then stopped. Track and trace started. Then stopped. Yet we all know, from South Korea and others, that this was an essential step in protecting the NHS and saving lives.

Then 'stay home' came two weeks too late and after huge public gatherings. And was not rammed home hard enough to begin.

Now we come to loosen the lockdown. Am I confident we shall get that right? Don't even ask. But they cannot let the likes of me loose yet: too old, too complicated, too vulnerable, too much part of the 0.5%....

AND finally I'd like to share the Eye's leading article this edition. And this I shall quote at length:

LOSE-LOSE SCENARIO

PANDEMIC planning is the ultimate lose-lose scenario. The lives and livelihoods lost from the virus have to be balanced against the lives and livelihoods lost from the "treatment".

This virus is causing a surge of deaths particularly in the sick and elderly, whereas lockdown is causing a smaller surge in non-Covid deaths and a steady, sustained increase in harm to those who have their whole lives ahead of them.

Brutally put, 100 percent of us are making sacrifices to save 0.5 percent of us (or less).

Children are being harmed to save adults; the poor are being harmed more than the rich; and some people have become so conditioned to "stay at home" that not even a medical

emergency will tempt them to seek help.

Given such staggering complexity, the best one can hope for is an overall "harm minimisation" strategy. To get there, experts from all disciplines need to subject their models and data on the benefits and harms of any strategy to full public scrutiny. And politicians need to admit their errors in real time.

It has taken us more than three months to move from Patient Zero to mass testing and tracing. It would be churlish not to welcome Matt Hancock's 100,000 tests a day (even

though they included requests and promptly fell again), but thousands more lives might have been saved by earlier action. It is time for an apology.

Meanwhile, after the mothballing of the little-used Nightingale hospital in London, questions will be asked about the money and precious resources spent on the hospital — but it's worth noting that the NHS needs extra capacity in case it gets a second spike in infection.

To read it all go to this link in a day or two when it goes live (we subscribers get a bonus) : 
https://www.private-eye.co.uk/current-issue
 Or order your copy now...