Did ministers hide real death toll?

The COVID Diaries – 83 19th June

Today an analysis by the Guardian newspaper revealed that for 22 consecutive days during the peak of the Covid-19 epidemic, more than 1,000 people in the died each day in the UK.

This compares starkly with the numbers announced by the government and ministers have been accused of massively downplaying the official death toll.

On 8th April the government figures suggested there were 881 deaths, when the actual figure was 1,445.

Another government gaffe

The COVID Diaries – 82 18th June

In another embarrassing U-turn, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has announced that the government has been forced to abandon a centralised coronavirus contact-tracing app after spending three months and millions of pounds on technology that experts had repeatedly warned would not work.

Instead the government will now develop an alternative designed by the US tech companies Apple and Google which is months away from being ready.

Hancock said the government would not “put a date” on when the new app would be ready, although officials admitted it was likely to be in the autumn or winter.

Will Rhodes fall?

The COVID Diaries – 81 17th June

The governing body of Oriel College in Oxford has voted in favour of removing its statue of the Victorian imperialist Cecil Rhodes. The college will set up an independent inquiry into the key issues around the statue following a student-led campaign that began four years ago.

The decision follows protests by the Rhodes Must Fall campaign outside the college over the past two weeks. The campaign was reignited by the recent Black Lives Matter demonstrations across the UK, including  the toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol.

Another silly mistake

The COVID Diaries – 80 16th June

Footballer Marcus Rashford has forced Boris Johnson into an embarrassing U-turn over providing food vouchers for some of England’s poorest families over the summer school holidays. A campaign launched by the footballer was plunging the government into another crisis.

The Prime Minister made the remarkable claim that he had only become aware of Rashford’s interest in the issue earlier in the day.

Yet 24 hours before, a government spokesperson had rejected the footballer’s plea for it to keep paying for the £15-a-week vouchers over the summer, and ministers had been sent out to defend the government’s position. But with Conservative MPs threatening to rebel against the government, Downing Street retreated and announced a new £120m “covid summer food fund” for 1.3 million pupils in England.

“If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any,”

The COVID Diaries – 79 15th June

The Independent has reported today:

“Donald Trump is blaming an uptick in coronavirus cases and hospitalisations solely on an increase in testing rather than his push for governors to reopen their states even as the sometimes-deadly disease continues to spread.

“If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any,” the president said Monday during an event for seniors at the White House.

A number of states have reported record numbers of sick people requiring hospital stays since the pandemic begin, even as they continue steps to get their economies open again.

But the president and his team have denied that his insistence governors get their states open is causing the increase in cases.

The Monday remark was mere the latest time the president has made strange comments about Covid-19 testing.

He has consistently sounded inconsistent messages, bragging that the US has tested more people than other countries while also complaining that the number of known infections (2.1m) and deaths (over 115,000) are so high because of that testing rate.”

Trump wobbles!

The COVID Diaries – 78 14th June

Donald Trump appeared to experience difficulty drinking a glass of water during a ceremony at West Point military academy. He also blamed a “long, steep, very slippery” ramp for his problems when he was seen walking awkwardly down a slight slope accompanied by Superintendent of the United States Military Academy.

Meanwhile, pressure is growing on the UK government to explain a decision to drop the chief nurse from a COVID-19 press conference after she refused to publicly back Dominic Cummings’s behaviour when he broke the lockdown.

Ministers have been accused of trying to gag experts after Ruth May was dropped when she declined to toe the government line in practice questions.

Right wing thuggery

The COVID Diaries – 77 13th June

Today London witnessed disgraceful behaviour by right wing activists who had gathered supposedly to defend statues in the city centre. At one point they took over Parliament Square and pelted mounted police with bottles, cans and a smoke canister. Later on, as police in riot gear formed lines to contain protesters in the square, they also came under attack from a hail of bottles and cans.

One right wing activist provoked outrage after being pictured urinating next to a memorial to PC Keith Palmer, the officer who was stabbed to death during the Westminster Bridge terrorist attack in 2017.

Worst recession in 300 years?

The COVID Diaries – 76 12th June

According to the Office for National Statistics, Britain’s economy shrank by a record 20.4% in April as the first full month of the coronavirus lockdown set the country on course for the worst recession in more than three centuries.

The economy shrank by a record 20.4% in April, the first full month of the coronavirus lockdown.

The collapse of growth in the economy in April, compared with the previous month, was the biggest since monthly records began in 1997, and was more than triple the previous record fall of 5.8% in March – when the lockdown was first announced.

The Bank of England has estimated that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) could contract by 25% in the second quarter and unemployment more than double.

“Flailing around” on schools

The COVID Diaries – 75 11th June

The government has found itself on the back foot following education secretary Gavin Williamson’s ditching of plans for all primary pupils to return to school before the summer break.

A spokesman said that an extended catch-up plan for England’s schools is to be launched for the summer and beyond, to help pupils get back on track following the lockdown enforced school shutdowns.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been accused of “flailing around” over schools.

On Wednesday, Labour leader Keir Starmer called for a national recovery plan for schools, saying the current plan to get pupils back to classrooms were “lying in tatters”.

Earlier action would have saved thousands of lives

The COVID Diaries – 74 10th June

Professor Neil Ferguson, whose modelling helped shape the coronavirus response strategy, has said thousands of deaths could have been prevented if the UK had acted sooner.

He told the Commons science and technology committee: “We knew the epidemic was doubling every three to four days before lockdown interventions were introduced.

“So had we introduced lockdown measures a week earlier, we would have reduced the final death toll by at least a half.”