By early March it was becoming increasingly obvious that the government were being overtaken by events as the virus had permeated through the United Kingdom. Washing your hands for a prolonged amount of time simply wasn’t going to cut it. At this point in a metropolis like London, the vast majority of people hadn’t got the memo with the further anomaly that only a tiny fraction had taken to wearing face masks yet, due to clubs and pubs remaining open, people weren’t socially distancing but – presumably with the hand washing in mind – greeted each other by bumping elbows or fists.
Some had put themselves under their own personal lockdowns, not daring to go out and fearing the worst. But still, with nothing closed, the government messaging had apparently failed to emphasise how dangerous the virus was. Perhaps the severity of the situation had not been conveyed in their message which finally changed on the 23rd March. The Prime Minister Boris Johnson went on national television to announce a lockdown with the rules that people could only leave their dwelling for medical appointments, to go essential item shopping, for one period of exercise outdoors per day and if they had to travel for work purposes if unavoidable.
The country embraced Zoom calls, streaming, gin, baking, circuit training with the kids, home schooling and clear blue skies as pollution fell.
Yet alongside the curios and consequences came the mounting death toll, reaching a thousand a day by early April.
The government gave daily updates as they clung on to vague or ill-thought-out concepts or projects like the doomed track and trace experiment on the Isle of Wight. Initially it seemed like a bold move whereby the technology and the logistics could be trialled on an island.
There were two flaws however. The Isle of Wight had a very low infection rate and, conversely, it’s relatively high age demographic suggested accessing the specific smart phone app might be problematic. Ultimately after the scheme being much heralded, few updates were given over the passing weeks in May and the promise evaporated into thin air. The failure to successfully execute an efficient track and trace system nationally would be death by a thousand cuts.
Yet with seasons changing, the weather warmer and daylight hours longer, it appeared that a natural respite from the pandemic might have eased the infection rate and death toll. Nonetheless, before we reached this period in May and June, it is important to focus on the management of matters by the government up to and during it.
In late March, Johnson, Health Secretary Matt Hancock and special adviser Dominic Cummings all reportedly went into isolation with the virus. For Hancock this meant a brief spell of quarantine before he returned to head up the government response. For Cummings, this meant a strange interpretation of government rules that led to him fleeing several hundred miles from London to Durham where he breached the rules repeatedly.
Meanwhile Johnson was embroiled in his own soap opera. After being out of public view for over a week as the death toll escalated thus leaving the likes of Dominic Raab to plead for the nation to stay home during Easter, it was announced that there was concern over his health. Following this, he was admitted to hospital and eventually as a precaution placed in intensive care.
Not long after Johnson was apparently through the worst, it was announced that his baby boy with partner Carrie Symonds had been born prematurely. Bizarrely, when the UK had suffered more than most European countries and the government had a lot of questions to answer, specifically about the care home mortality rate and the lateness of the lockdown, those headlines were rubbing shoulders with vignettes about the Prime Minister’s recovery and young family.
However, while the heat was off Johnson, Cummings would get far less favourable headlines. Bizarrely it was never quite clear how his trip to the North East came out after many weeks. It smelt of the government using him as a sacrificial lamb but it might easily have been the media digging sufficiently deep to take revenge on the man who held them in so much contempt.
Either way, the situation became all the more odd when Johnson backed him to the hilt yet then sent Cummings out to make his case in the Downing Street Rose Garden in front of the British media. Neither apologising or empathising, Cummings the bogey man, the technocrat who allegedly was the architect of Vote Leave and Johnson’s landslide election victory proved to be a meek and out of touch man who further alienated himself from those watching both inside the garden and outside of it by claiming he’d foreseen the havoc a Pandemic might cause by name checking an online essay he’d written referencing it. His arrogance was revealed as it didn’t take long for anybody with a search engine to discover that the Pandemic lines had been recent annotations made after his trip North. Despite the calls to resign, Johnson kept with his special advisor, begging the question as to just how powerful the latter had become.
Trust in the government had no doubt been rocked. It was during this period that Johnson’s next lockdown card was played. Unfortunately it was the Joker in the pack.
On the 30th April and making his first substantial appearance since his release from hospital, Johnson was in cheerful, blustery mode, telling the nation that coming out of lockdown was to happen soon. Not naming a date nor any timescales, this zeal to be in the limelight as the returned leader with good news was a mistake. The country would eventually officially be out of lockdown by the start of June but, in reaction to Johnson’s message, the streets started filling up again, parks likewise and albeit for pubs remaining shut, society took on a complexion much the same as it had to early March.
On reflection, the unlock had to happen at some point and late Spring seemed like a sensible time to do it given the death toll was falling on a daily basis. But clarity regarding dates and guidelines was crucial as another limbo period akin to the middle of March, whereby platitudes from government resulted in people making their own rules up, could not suppress the virus in the long term.
By summer the government introduced local lockdowns due to flare ups in the North West of England and the East Midlands. Johnson called this the “whack-a-mole” approach but didn’t seem to garner the irony of the fact said mole only gets driven down one hole to pop up from another. The government were now firefighting regionally but seemed determined to continue with this questionable policy rather than bring back a national lockdown. A tacit admission of failure with the timing of the first one?
Either way, in keeping with trends around Europe, come September, it was clear that tough decisions were going to have to be made with Winter on the horizon and all the things that come with it; festivities like Halloween, Bonfire Night, Diwali, Hanukkah and Christmas plus the usual strain on the NHS that come with the drop in temperatures and general flu.
However, the government pursued their local lockdown obsession and were drawn into stand-offs with local authorities and Mayors over whether the closures and restrictions were proportionate and how much funding would be available. This produced yet more uncertainty and limbo time that was neither good for the economy or public health.
By October, there were calls from the medical community and from rival political parties that another national lockdown, be it only a fortnight, was needed. This made sense with Christmas in particular looming large. There was a rationale that a fortnight to a month could flatten the rising infections and send the R rate backwards so that the scientists would have sufficient data by the end of November to make an informed decision as to whether an additional fortnight might be prudent. This would give the country a greater chance of celebrating together come mid-December albeit responsibly.
Instead, Johnson once again hesitated and the clock ticked around until late October when another teatime television broadcast confirmed what many had thought crucial for weeks; a national lockdown to commence five days later and to last a month. This was a curious move mainly because of the time lag in knowing what the infection rate is.
Throughout the year, the general consensus is that the lag is approximately a fortnight which begged the question that surely the scientists would not be able to see the results of a 4 week lockdown until after it had ended. A lockdown doesn’t flatten the infection rate immediately because of another lag: the difference between being infected and being confirmed as infected via a test. It had to happen but one anticipated that it was going to give the scientific community and government little or no latitude when it came to making decisions once the lockdown had ended. What was more idiotic was that Johnson announced the second lockdown on the 31st October to start nearly a week later so more days had been wasted in the run up to the 5th November.
The government were either gambling, knew something we didn’t or had once again lacked good judgement or instinct. It seemed highly unlikely that come early December, the rate would have been adequately halted to justify lifting restrictions. An extension of the national lockdown for a further fortnight appeared the inevitable outcome if Christmas was to be in any way recognisable and to restrict the infection rate going into January.
Sadly, once the lockdown finished, the government announced their next plan: the much-maligned Tier system comprising of three levels of varying restrictions and rules. This, once again, caused confusion although the government sold this on the promise that there would be lifted restrictions for people from multiple households to meet over the Christmas holidays.
It seemed a chaotic way to go about matters: restrictions for 4 weeks, loosened restrictions for the following 3 weeks and then an apparent free for all with the British public in some quarters choosing to interpret the rules in their own way or just totally ignore them.
But there might have been a reason for this approach. Only days after the second lockdown began, it was announced that a vaccine had been developed. The government greeted the news with elation as the race was now on to get it approved and rolled out. Had the government complacently thought this was the silver bullet?
We reached December and the end of lockdown with two big things to consider. Firstly, the vaccine was on the way. Secondly, the infection rates were still on the rise and, yet again, out in front of the government and any strategy it had beyond its silver bullet.
Despite a storm brewing, one that the vaccine seemed too late to stop, the government continued with the Tier system until the fortnight before Christmas. At first it announced various shifts within the Tiers. Bristol was demoted to Tier 2 and London (which seemingly had got off likely in the first place) unsurprisingly was promoted to Tier 3.
At this time the government revealed that a new mutated variant of the virus had been discovered although this had been known about in scientific circles for several months thus making one wonder why there had been so much enthusiasm about the vaccine (developed after all to combat the original strain of Corona Virus) and why there had been such a cavalier attitude about the timing of the second lockdown and the Tier arrangements.
More days would pass however despite numbers from early December showing the infection and mortality rate were rising and that the new variant was out there. It took until the 19th December for Johnson to make an announcement that not only were the Christmas conditions to change with restrictions being heavily implemented, but that a new Tier 4 had been devised which would come into immediate force in London and large parts of the South East of England. Things were only going one way but a lack of instinct and solid judgement or even heeding the scientific advice has apparently led to this disturbing and potentially avoidable set of circumstances. Instead of being pro-active, Johnson has repeatedly waited until the last minute to make the long overdue calls on every single occasion. Each lockdown announcement has been either once we’ve reach breaking point or shrouded in confusion.
It’s a binary contemplation of the situation in hand. Similar to the divisive and simplistic campaigning from Johnson over Vote Leave and getting Brexit done, it seems like once the vaccine was on the way, it was favoured over taking important decisions regarding the existing virus and any other potential dangers like a mutated variant. This notion that the future will be fine and that details can be overlooked or decisions dithered over, hiding away from the reality of the situation as it unfolds. The lockdown in the Autumn should have been the main focus as it was in the here and now. It should have been called earlier because the virus was trending upwards in a ghastly repeat of March.
As the whole country now looks set to miss anything resembling a normal festive season, the death toll reaches the levels of April, that the Prime Minister and government of the United Kingdom have managed to repeat the same mistakes made in the Spring is unfathomable. Yet this time, Johnson might not have any more episodes of his soap opera left to distract us from realising who is at fault for this fiasco.
Athon 
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