In the last 14 years, the British government has brought about destruction and chaos. Never before has there been so much mismanagement in public office, more so since Brexit and the Covid pandemic.
Profits not people
This week the government hit an all time low when it announced it has decided to halt routine Covid testing for people being discharged from hospital from care homes. This is all part of their strategy to manage Covid 19 like other respiratory illnesses.
The UK government is wrong. Covid is not a conventional respiratory ilness. It is a systematic ilness. Scientists have shown that it has many forms that attack the brain, the vascular system, that it causes clots, organ damage and has the potential to cause Long Covid with all sorts of lasting damaging effects. Elevated blood pressure post Covid-19 has been reported in several studies.
Ziyad Al-Aly, a physician and clinical epidemiologist, director of the Clinical Epidemiology Center at VA Saint Louis Health Care System in Missouri, wrote in Scientific American detailing the numerous studies that highlight what he describes as the “indelible mark” that Covid leaves on the brain and its functioning.
People who had Covid were at an increased risk of cognitive deficits including memory problems. A mild to moderate form of the virus caused prolonged inflammation of the brain and changes that are equivalent to seven years of brain aging.
Imaging showed “shrinkage of brain volume” and “altered brain structure” after infection. Patients who are hospitalized in intensive care suffer “cognitive deficits and other brain damage that are equivalent to 20 years of aging.”
Not one but 11 studies showed that Covid increased the risk of development of new-onset dementia in people older than 60.
On these points, the government really needs to pay attention:
Autopsies performed on people who died with Covid revealed “devastating damage” in their brains; those who had severe Covid but died months later from other causes still had traces of the virus in brain tissue”
Ignoring medical experts is not only foolish but a case of misconduct in office.
The medical community, which is well aware of the latest research, responded with many messages on social media. Dr Joe Pajak CSci FRSC wrote:
Human rights
If we consider that care homes are actually the homes of the residents in a collective sense, the human rights act states citizens should have the right to safety in and the enjoyment of their own homes. This right is impossible when measures to keep people safe are deliberately removed by policy.
Neither does this strategy promote safety for the workforce in care homes. Those engaged in social care occupations are already stretched in that the work can be physically demanding, stressful and brings home a very low wage. Many people in these professions are having to resort to food banks.
Malnutrition impairs the immune system.
The hidden and the ever present problem
Conor Brown, an infection analyst, attirbuted this strategy to normalise both Covid and Long Covid to political manoevures using the power of words by those in office. He posted on twitter/X:
“Acute Covid-19 was normalised by force-fitting SARS-CoV-2 infection into a category […]
‘like any other respiratory virus’. This simple – but false – idea now permeates infection control practices, testing etc.”
[…] The same tactic is now being used on Long Covid: ‘like any other post-viral syndrome’. Again, false.
“Removing words and phrases from government and media discourse – like ‘Covid’ and ‘Long Covid’ is designed specifically to remove the problem from the eyes of the general public. Normalising increased ill-health in a population is, fundamentally, a political decision”.
Furthermore, he describes the political ego or will as being an advantage to the virus:
“A statement of the obvious: SARS-CoV-2, like all pathogens, will take advantage of any opportunity to transmit and replicate. The ego of humans does not affect that fact in the slightest. In fact, the ego of humans is an advantage to the virus”.
This is not the only example of a government policy actually providing a malicious force with a route to replicate and grow. As a former EU member, we can no longer take advantage of policies which were designed to allow a country to send back migrants who arrived illegally. This has led to flourishing business for people smugglers. Britain has become an easier target. The small boats problem has thus been enhanced by the political ego to “take back control” and go it alone rather than any notion of common sense.
The UK government decided to allow a business deal whereby Pfizer boosters will be sold to the public via Boots. It seems a mixture of incompetence, with a disregard for the elderly and the vulnerable, showing a desire to engineer a background against which to further strain the NHS and encourage more citizens to invest in boosters from Boots that may be at play. Marketing by force, a very macabre carrot and stick method to increase sales?
Let’s look at the figures: two booster shots per year for the average family would run up bills of circa £800, a drop in the ocean for families such as the Sunaks, but this translates to a hefty expense, especially where a family has one breadwinner.
No other country in Europe sells boosters to the public. Rishi Sunak’s Britain on the other hand will do so and boast about it.
France ran a recent solidarity campaign encouraging the public to wear masks on public transport, so it would be safe for everyone. This is a more humanitarian strategy. Liberté, egalité, fraternité.
Town halls and pharmacies are distributing face masks as part of the Masque Solidaire campaign which urged people to wear face masks in confined public spaces to protect France’s 300,000 vulnerable and immunocompromised.
It seems that our prime minister is too stingy to provide more money to the NHS to fund boosters for more sectors of the population. This is Sunak, who is spending £4,92 billion of public money on 74 Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and £300 million on 12 Freeports to take advantage of Brexit opportunities.
Since October 2023, there have been an average of 3,020 hospital beds occupied by Covid patients. This all comes with a cost to the NHS and impacts those on its already large waiting lists.
Poverty and need is brought about by apathy and laziness
Where have we seen these masking narratives before? Benefits claimants. The government announced its plans last year to confiscate the right to free prescriptions provided to those claiming benefits if they did not do enough to find work.
This is another vicious circle: if Long Covid is ‘normalised’ and swept under the carpet, sufferers would begin to lose any legitimate claim to financial support.
Contrast the acts of the government with King Charles’s Easter message this week. The King mentioned the importance of friendship “in a time of need” on Thursday at a pre-recorded speech for the Maundy service, which traditionally gives money to elderly attendants. He went on to say Christ set an “example of how we should serve and care for each other”, and how as a nation “we need and benefit greatly from those who extend the hand of friendship to us, especially in a time of need”. The Guardian refered to “a reduced number of members of the royal family present in order to avoid the health risks associated with large crowds”.
Clearly, the risks are still present, more so for anyone who has an underlying medical condition, especially given the recent announcements about the King’s and Princess of Wales’s medical treatments.
Whatever your opinions of the monarchy, on a human level, Charles has often voiced subtle and open comments which contrast with government narratives. He would represent all sorts of faiths, not just the Church of England. This immediately showed the world that Britain was not full of nationalistic tendencies whose aim is to force other cultures into oblivion.
The environment too has been a high priority with decades of experience in organic farming.
These risks form crowds are also very real for care home settings be that for those sent there to convalesce after hosptial treatment, or residents themselves. The content of the speech and comments in the media on safety act as a powerful alternative narrative frame to the ruling discourse of the political elite in number 10, thus undermining Sunak’s policies. It shows the government up for what it is: full of neglect.
At a time of need, or a time of life where human beings deserve more care and support, the government has decided to ‘throw their saftey under a bus’.
The murky waters of sewage
This is the government which has become famous for allowing the discharge of sewage into our waterways in favour of profit and privatisation.
Over four million hours of raw sewage discharges were poured into rivers and seas last year, which is a 129% increase on the previous 12 months.
Ecoli bacteria was found in the river Thames near Hammersmith bridge by River Action, prompting warnings that any participants in boat races this Saturday should not go into the water.
Sarah Dyke, Liberal democrat MP, bemoaned the situation in her constituency, Somerton and Frome , which was polluted by sewage 4,046 times in 2023 for a total of 46,323 hours. 82 sewage dumps emanated into the River Cam at one pumping station alone, winning this area a high position in the Top of The Poops chart
Top of the Poops shows readers in the North East, including the Hexham constituents of Guy Opperman, where the leakages are entering into our local waterways. The havoc runs across the entire country, north and south.
Led by Donkeys’s recent film depicts how water privatisation by the current government to funds and billionaires, including Northubrian Water, resulted in a huge 57 billion pound dividend payment. The government allowed for privatisation, profiteering and the dereliction of sewage infrastructure.
Heavy metals pollution
Not only is sewage dumping a problem, UK water companies have failed to replace three million toxic lead pipes. Even exposure to lower levels of lead has health impacts which can cause damage to the brain and nervous system in children, slowed growth and development, and problems with learning, speech and hearing.
Dr Tristan Sturm of Queen’s University Belfast is conducting studies on this subject. He voiced caution on measures to reduce contamination as being insufficient:
“That’s often a misconception among public health that if you just lower something enough, it’ll be safe. ”
There’s no such thing as safe levels of lead exposure. Around 25% of UK communication pipes are made up of lead. Worse still, when a pipe is replaced, the amount of lead in water can double due to the disturbance. The Drinking Water Inspectorate. is aware of these problems, but mention there is no strong motivation to further reduce lead in our drinking water.
Hearing this, our readers may well be inspired to purchase a water filter. Many of these are not cheap and cause added expense to household bills.
Those murky waters and stench are visible contaminants, for which there at least seem to be statstical evidence. None such with the airborne virus particles, until its devastating effects hit innocent people. Then of course, having stopped testing, there will be no traceability as to potential sources of infection.
Another vicious circle starts where those hospitalised with the virus carry it back into other medical settings in hosptials, where both staff and patients are put at further risk.
The government may have learned nothing from the Covid inquiry, but many members of the public have. The desire for profiteering using substandard PPE in secret business deals motivated many MPs during the pandemic. Booster sales continue this trend, allbeit in a publicised business deal.
It is not surprising that the government would forge plans to leave the ECHR. Top of the Poops indeed.
Britain deserves better than the current government, which is not only self-serving and incompetent, but a danger to public safety.
