The Government cannot help the fact that the world is now being confronted by the omicron variant, but it has to take responsibility for its failure to do enough to prepare one of the richest, most advanced countries for the oncoming storm.
No wonder so many voters, and, increasingly, back-bench MPs, ministers and Cabinet members, are cynical, angry and exhausted. Two years into this crisis, the authorities appear to have learnt little. The roll-out of third jabs (which appear to be vital in combating the variant) has proceeded far too slowly; bureaucratic errors continue to befuddle every move (with people unnecessarily turned away from vaccination walk-in centres); the Government has ordered far too few antiviral pills; and the process of working on and giving authorisation for new, improved vaccines is scandalously slow.
Just as bad has been the Government’s utter inability to increase the NHS’s capacity. This is extremely hard to do, granted, but why didn’t we spend the past year at least working on a plan for temporary, emergency field hospitals, perhaps staffed with retirees, volunteers and students?
The basic problem is that, while omicron, at present, appears less dangerous than previous variants, it spreads more rapidly, meaning that even if it sends a smaller proportion of the infected to hospital, this could be a very large number in real terms. That, at least, is the hypothesis (still not fully confirmed by data) that senior Government figures are working to. Hence their abject panic at the latest models, and why we are back to the prospect that our lives will be shut down – killing businesses, curtailing liberties and wrecking mental health – to “save” an NHS that, we are told, won’t be able to withstand a looming “tsunami” of hospitalisations.
This was more forgivable in early 2020 because Covid was new and the entire planet had been caught short. Britain had no domestic diagnostic industry, for a start, and the emergency procedures signed off by Jeremy Hunt were for the wrong kind of pandemic.
But why has the Government done so little since then to cope with the inevitability of fresh waves? Why is it falling back on restrictions yet again? Why is nobody sure where the gradual tightening of the rules will end? And does this mean that every new variant will overwhelm us, even when we are on to our fourth or fifth jabs? That would be a strange kind of society. The Government must be held to account for betraying its own earlier success. The world-leading vaccine roll-out was made possible by innovation – taking procurement out of the hands of the NHS, creating a brilliant public/private vaccine taskforce. Then the Government handed the operation back to the sainted NHS. After an initial period of apparent achievement, it lost momentum.
Why doesn’t the booster operation run 24/7? Are there lists of retired medical staff being actively recruited and directed to help?
The worst error of all must be the failure to produce and distribute enough antiviral pills. These can be taken at home, and, as long as Covid is detected quickly and the treatment starts promptly, are hugely effective. This would be the best way to reduce the pressure on the NHS as the pillsscould be delivered to homes or picked up at pharmacies – so why isn’t it happening? We need answers.
For all the vast sums spent, the massively increased NHS budget, and the endless boosterism, we are left playing a giant game of Russian roulette – gambling upon authoritarian measures, the healthcare system not collapsing, and the hope that the variants will eventually fizzle out to something resembling the cold. This is a shocking failure of policy. The Government must get its act together immediately.
