Long distance testing

The COVID Diaries – 153 3rd September

Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has reported that the reproduction number of coronavirus on the country is likely to be above one, and could be as high as 1.4.

Meanwhile in England health secretary Matt Hancock has dismissed protests that people are being forced to drive hundreds of miles for a Covid-19 test, insisting the “vast majority” get one easily.

An official website has advised residents in London to travel to Wales and those in Cumbria to head to Scotland – triggering fresh criticism that the much-criticised testing system is failing.

Mr Hancock was told it made a mockery of his claim of a “world-beating testing regime”. 

Did Trump suffer strokes?

The COVID Diaries – 152 2nd September

Author and New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt has claimed that Donald Trump suffered a series of mini-strokes last November and that vice president Mike Pence was placed on standby for a scenario in which president Trump was anaesthetised.

Trump’s doctor has denied the claims.

Fears of new surge

The COVID Diaries – 151 31st August

Yesterday the government reported 1,715 new coronavirus cases, the highest daily number since 4 June and the highest number for a weekend day since mid-May. 

Experts fear that the UK is now at risk of a new surge of infections as schools and universities reopen their doors and cold weather drives people inside.

50,000 unnecessary deaths?

The COVID Diaries – 150 30th August

Sir David King, a former chief scientific adviser, has claimed that the United Kingdom is facing up to 50,000 unnecessary deaths because Boris Johnson’s government “consciously allowed” coronavirus to spread.

King described the official response to the pandemic as a “complete cock-up by government”, driven in part by a desire to maintain secrecy around the scientific advice it was receiving.

Tories in turmoil?

The COVID Diaries – 149 29th August

Furious Conservative MPs are reported to be turning on Boris Johnson over his government’s chaotic handling of Covid-19 and a new poll shows the Tories have surrendered a massive lead over Labour in just five months.

As MPs prepare to return to Westminster on Tuesday, Charles Walker, who is vice-chair of the 1922 committee of Conservative backbenchers, told the Observer newspaper that the recent string of U-turns had left many colleagues in despair, with some struggling to support and defend their government to constituents. Governing by U-turn in this way, he said, was unsustainable.

A new poll by Opinium for the Observer shows Labour is now level-pegging with the Tories for the first time since last summer, before Johnson was leader. In just five months since the full lockdown was imposed by the prime minister, the Conservatives have lost a 26-point lead over Labour who now stand neck-and-neck with the Tories on 40%.

Lies, damned lies, and Trump

The COVID Diaries – 148 28th August

The Guardian’s summary of the Republican’s convention:

“There are lies, there are damned lies – and then there was this week’s Republican national convention: a four-day cavalcade of brazen falsehoods from the president and his enablers. Wild distortions and exaggerations are hardly new to politics. But Donald Trump’s mendacity is in a class of its own, as his closing speech on Thursday underscored.

“Facing grim unemployment figures that have holed his plan to run on the economy, he is an incumbent still campaigning as an outsider, and relying on race-baiting, fearmongering and slandering his rival. Joe Biden, previously dismissed as a creature of the Washington swamp, is now portrayed as a Trojan horse for radicals bent on tearing down the American dream. Yet the lies about Mr Biden and the Democrats pale beside those told about Mr Trump’s own record. Empathetic. Feminist. Most remarkably, in Melania’s telling, a man of “total honesty”.

“When he announced: “I say very modestly that I have done more for the African-American community than any president since Abraham Lincoln,” it was hard to know whether the adverb or the rest of the statement was the more misleading. The most glaring falsehood is that he took “swift action” to protect his country from coronavirus , instead of effectively abandoning it to its grim fate – 181,000 deaths to date. The Republicans want America to believe that the worst is over, though more than 1,000 people are dying a day.”

Government poll rating nosedives

The COVID Diaries 147 – 27th August

The Conservative Party and Boris Johnson have suffered a dramatic slump in popularity after a summer of education chaos and local lockdowns, according to a new poll.

An Ipsos Mori survey shows just 29 per cent of those taking part as having a favourable view of the prime minister – down 12 points since July and the lowest score Boris Johnson has recorded since the December general election.

The Independent quotes Ipsos MORI Research Director Keiran Pedley as saying: “It is clear from these findings that the reputations of the prime minister and the Conservative Party generally have taken a hit after a challenging few weeks – with a noticeable drop in public favourability towards both since July.”

Vigilante violence in the US

The COVID Diaries – 146 26th August

In Kenosha, Wisconsin, protests started on Sunday after a video circulated showing an officer in the city’s police department shooting a Black man in the back as he tried to open his car door.

The man was later identified as Jacob Blake and is now paralysed from the waist down. On Tuesday evening – the third night of protests – two people were shot and killed and another person was wounded. Videos of the shooting appear to show a white vigilante gunman carrying out the shootings.

Loch Ness Monster?

The COVID Diaries – 145 25th August

In comments made last night at the Republican National Convention, the eldest son of incumbent US President Donald Trump (Donald Trump Jnr) compared the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to the Loch Ness Monster.

He also accused Mr Biden of “lurking around” like the legendary creature of the Highlands – saying he only “sticks his head up every now and then to run for president”.

There is a fatal flaw with this comparison: The Loch Ness Monster doesn’t exist, whereas Joe Biden does. Far from being a monster, he offers a unifying, rational alternative to Trump who might just salvage the United States from the swamp into which Trump has taken it.

Key White House adviser quits

The COVID Diaries – 144 24th August

Kellyanne Conway, a key White House adviser, has announced she will be leaving Donald Trump’s administration at the end of August just months before the presidential election, saying she needs to focus on her family.

Conway was Trump’s campaign manager during the 2016 presidential contest and then became a senior counsellor to the president. She informed Trump of her decision in the Oval Office on Sunday.

The timing of her departure is raising questions as to why Trump is losing the most senior woman in the White House administration and why she has chosen to quit at this crucial moment.