A wonderful Covid milestone

[pat]

Covid cases, largely of the Delta variant (aka the Johnson variant), are soaring here in the UK and forecast to reach 100,000 a day during August.

To celebrate this wonderful milestone in our fight against Covid, tomorrow, July 19th,  will be Freedom Day! Our government has decided to abnegate all responsibility for the management of the pandemic and allow us to manage it ourselves. All restrictions will be removed! We don't need to wear masks any more! We don't need to socially distance any more! We can freely move around and help spread the disease amongst the many millions of citizens who remain unvaccinated!

I'd be interested to know what governments, and indeed citizens, of other countries make of the dreadful mismanagement of the virus that our government has been guilty of. I'm wondering if the fact that our parliament goes into its summer recess next week is part of the reason that Johnson has decided to wash his hands of the whole matter.

[mkenuk]

They are going ahead with 'Freedom Day' tomorrow because Johnson is scared of losing face by changing his mind.
The financiers, the big businesses that really run the country, are desperate to get people out of their houses so that they can start spending money again.

[pat]

We're already out of our houses spending money. In fact the restrictions that most people are currently facing are minimal anyway, so even if Johnson wants to lift them it makes no sense at all to allow people to decide for themselves if they wear face masks in public places or not. I fear it will create a divide similar to that of Brexit and a lot of people will become self-righteous moralizers about those not wearing masks. Continuing with compulsory mask-wearing would at least help to limit the infections, especially on public transport and in busy shops.

You're right that Johnson is scared of losing face, Mike. Throughout the whole pandemic his decisions have been based on him keeping as much popularity as he could, hence the 'too little, too late' that has been prominent throughout.

I've just started reading a book called 'Failures of State. The inside story of Britain's battle with Coronavirus' by Jonathan Calvert and George Arbuthnott, the editor and deputy editor of the Sunday Times's Insight investigation team. I'm only a couple of chapters in at the moment, but it doesn't look as if it's going to be very complimentary.

[yelnats]

Perhaps Boris is looking for a funeral led economic recovery.

[mkenuk]

Is Johnson the UK's most incompetent PM of all times? There's no question of it.
The abominable Thatcher at least had a vision- to rid UK of anything that she considered socialist - and set about doing it.
The narcissistic, racist, xenophobic Johnson just doesn't have a clue.

Living abroad it is very difficult for me to gauge the mood of the people in UK. One thing that helps is the survey of England's newspaper front pages that appears on the BBC website every day soon after the papers have gone to press.
Interesting that today - the so-called 'Day of Freedom' - even the right wing papers such as the Telegraph can hardly be said to be over-enthusiastic.
Their headline includes the words Freedom Day Farce ; the tabloid 'Daily Excess' and one-time Nazi supporting 'Daily Heil' also talk of 'humiliating u-turns' after Bojo the Buffoon tried to get away with avoiding self-isolation.

Perhaps, although I'm not holding my breath, the British people will soon come to stop regarding this moron as just a harmless clown and replace him with someone who actually knows what they are doing.

[Scouser1952]

I agree with you Mike. Bojo is a clown, but is dangerous. Like all politicians he is out to feather his nest regardless of the consequences to the general populace. Unfortunately he has such a large parliamentary majority that he seems able to see out his current term.
 As a result of freedump day, tens of thousands of people a day are contracting Covid-19. Many will be hospitalised and many will die. Other countries are greatly  concerned and are comparing his actions to his earlier attempt at herd immunity.
The sensible majority of the populace will get their jabs (had both mine) stay at home and wear masks as necessary. Unfortunately a huge swathe will go out to pubs, clubs, beaches, holidays etc.. because they believe they deserve it and have little concern for the consequences- rather like Boris.
God help us all.
Stay safe everyone and get your jabs.

[pat]

Bojo is a clown, but is dangerous.

Indeed. It's been said that the biggest danger to the UK is its prime minister. Another accurate quote says the reason the Tories don't invest in education is because they depend upon a certain level of ignorance for their support.

In a fair world where we had a democratic voting system instead of the ridiculous first past the post we wouldn't even have a Tory government. In the 2019 general election the Tories gained a seat for every 38,264 votes cast,  Labour got one seat for every 50,837 votes, the Lib Dems got one seat for every 336,038 votes and the Greens achieved just one seat for their 866,435 votes. We ended up with a government with an unassailable 80 seat majority after winning only 43.6% of the total votes. Not only is that result grossly unfair and undemocratic, it's downright dangerous, whichever party is in charge, as they can do whatever the hell they want. This government is proving exactly how dangerous it is.

[mkenuk]

I can see strong arguments in favour of proportional representation, Pat.
In theory, in the past, MPs were elected locally so that they would then be in a position to take local problems to the national parliament in Wesptminster.

In the last election, with pr (proportional representation) the tories would have finished up with a large majority over Labour. However, Labour, working together with the LibDems and the SNP would have been able to stand together against the worst of Johnson's excesses.

Incidentally, my Brexit-supporting pal is so proud of his new blue British passport.
He didn't believe me when I told him it had been made in France, the contract to produce UK passports having been given to a French company with the resultant loss of more than 150 jobs at de la Rue printers in Gateshead.
So much for 'putting Britain first'!

[etbandung]

so hows uk right now are they still applying no reguliation for prevention of covid virus? here in indonesia really struggling its been couple of months of strict regulation its just so sad what if low income people cant make money & since the pandemic.

[pat]

Things in the UK aren't too bad at the moment. Nearly all of the Covid restrictions were removed last month; we're still getting around 28,000 new cases a day but due to the success of the vaccination programme (about 75% of adults are now fully vaccinated) the death rate is low and most of those deaths are of unvaccinated people. Sadly we still hear of people dying because they chose to believe the rubbish spouted by the anti-vaxxers and refused to get vaccinated.

Whereabouts in Indonesia are you, etbandung? I was due to travel there last August on a private birding trip with plans to visit West Papua, Halmahera and Sulawesi but it was cancelled because of Covid, losing me a lot of money. I'm sorry to hear things are still so bad there.

[Alan W]

Hello, etbandung. Welcome to the forum. I'm guessing you're from Bandung.

Let's hope the Covid situation in Indonesia starts improving soon.

[Jacki]

Gee Pat you were brave booking non-essential travel, without a fully refundable option. Personally I’ve had to cancel four interstate trips here but only pre-booked with cancellation allowed. We have gone into lockdown today in the ACT and my poor son’s 21st was due this Saturday! The venue already refunded me within hours.

[pat]

Jacki, the trip was booked well before Covid came on the scene. Desperate as I am to go birding abroad again there's no way I'd book a trip under the present conditions. I can't remember if I've mentioned it before but I was in Costa Rica in March 2020 when the excrement hit the fan and I don't want to go through that nightmare again, of having very little cash, staying up all night trying to find an early flight home, eventually finding one but having my credit card rejected and then having to place myself in the hands of the tour company I'd travelled with (who had shown no interest in getting us home), resulting in having to pay £3,000 for a one-way flight. Needless to say my insurance policy, which covered both the Costa Rica trip and the Indonesia trip, had a general exception for anything to do with a pandemic - not the sort of thing one would normally bother checking for. Until now.

Sorry to hear that your son's celebrations have had to be cancelled. Better than having his life cancelled though.

[Jacki]

Yes, well that’s a horrible thought Pat and most upsetting.

[ridethetalk]

Gee Pat you were brave booking non-essential travel, without a fully refundable option. Personally I’ve had to cancel four interstate trips here but only pre-booked with cancellation allowed. We have gone into lockdown today in the ACT and my poor son’s 21st was due this Saturday! The venue already refunded me within hours.

I know how you feel Jacki, last year, during our drawn-out lockdown in Melbourne, my son turned 21...

...and I agree with Pat that it is better than having his life cancelled.