I am sure that readers of Unity News Network could hardly sleep on Monday night. After all, Tuesday 12 October was the day the House of Commons Health and Social Care, and Science and Technology Committees published their searing report into the UK Government response to the pandemic…if only. The truth is that the report—Coronavirus: lessons learned to date—is the dampest of squibs. The New York Times describes the report as ‘damning’ begging the question of whether the reporter actually read it. The fact is that it makes a piece of wet lettuce look like a sheet of corrugated iron. There are some choice phrases and statements that stand out and these range from rank hypocrisy to downright lies. It is also notable for what it does not say.
The opening paragraph of the executive summary sets the tone. Covid-19 is blamed for disrupting our lives “to an extent few predicted; separated friends and families; closed businesses and damaged livelihoods”. This is truly incredible as some key commentators such as Lord Sumption, Peter Hitchens, Toby Young, Niall McCrae and yours truly were predicting doom from the outset. But not from the virus; from the lockdown measures. The virus did not separate friends, close businesses or damage livelihoods, the UK Government did that. And in the process created a mental health crisis, an increase in suicides and we will probably never know the extent of the collateral damage and deaths through undiagnosed cancer and heart disease. Nevertheless, it is claimed that there “was a desire to avoid a lockdown because of the immense harm it would entail to the economy normal health services and society” which begs the question “then why did you do it?” I do not recall anyone from government, the Prime Minister, or his medical and scientific henchmen weighing up the predictably damaging effects of lockdown against the purported benefits. Hindsight is a great thing but, frankly, I think their “desire to avoid a lockdown” is a downright lie. I have always been convinced that the UK Government enjoyed every minute of the lockdown and relished the opportunity to exercise undue power over the population. If they did not enjoy it then they unleashed an army of people who most certainly did: Covid Marshalls; the police; and a wide range of health busybodies in the NHS and local government who just had too much fun and who, I am also convinced, just don’t want all this to stop.
One deficiency the authors of the report indicate is that they “were not as open to approaches being taken elsewhere—such as earlier lockdowns.” This reflects the unimaginative and sinister tone of the whole report which concludes that more and longer (as in “we believe it could have been pursued for longer”) lockdowns, testing and tracing and border shutdowns are what is needed next time. This shows that they have already made their minds up to which evidence they wish to pay attention and what measures they will take—God help us all—next time. If they are going to be genuinely open to “approaches being taken elsewhere” what about Sweden which managed well without lockdowns? Apparently, “In future an approach of greater questioning and challenge should characterise the development of policy.” Wonderful words, but will this involve allowing the kind of challenge that the lockdown sceptics have offered rather than having them banned from social media and pilloried on the mainstream media? I doubt it.
The lies are manifest: “The Government and the NHS both failed adequately to recognise the significant risks to the social care sector.” Really? Nobody stopped to think that cramming ill older people—who were not in hospital for fun—into nursing homes would not lead to disaster? And the euphemism contained in “The discharge of elderly people from NHS hospitals into care homes…while understandable as the NHS prepared to accept a surge of Covid patients” had “unintended consequences” says it all. It was ‘understandable’! No, it was disastrous, and the only question remains is whether it was deliberate. The NHS “runs hot”, according to the report. A nice piece of management-speak jargon. The NHS may “run hot” under normal circumstances but the fact is that the NHS barely functioned during the pandemic and will take years to return to providing a normal service, whether it is still running hot or not.
Naturally, the vaccine rollout is considered, and this is hubris from start to finish. Copious facts, figures and self-congratulation about the development of the vaccine, the speed of the rollout, the initial uptake and the export to underdeveloped countries are presented. The approvals process is described as “agile and innovative”. The “expertise, rigour and independence of the UK regulators” is lauded. The description of the approvals process is worth quoting in full:
“We adopted a novel, or innovative, regulatory process known as a rolling review. Normally, all the data on a vaccine’s safety, quality and effectiveness, and all required documentation, must be submitted together to start an evaluation to approve a medicine or vaccine. In the case of a rolling review—in this case—we reviewed data in packages or tranches as soon as they became available from ongoing studies, on a staggered basis. By reviewing data as soon as it became available, we could reach an opinion sooner on whether the medicine or the vaccine could be approved.”
In my view, a shorter version of the above could have read:
“the vaccines were not tested with the usual rigour, shortcuts were taken. Therefore, they may not be safe.”
The complete absence of any reference to adverse effects and deaths resulting from vaccination is a shocking omission. Even the mainstream media are not ignoring the dangers inherent in the Covid vaccines which have, demonstrably, killed people; officially 1,698 to date. Early in the report it is stated that the pandemic “exposed some major deficiencies in the machinery for government.” Surely this is the understatement of the year, and we hardly needed a pandemic to reveal this. The Prime Minister promised a public inquiry into the handling of the pandemic but has not shouted so loudly about this lately. I am sure that we would all wish to see that but only if it is populated by people with a range of views. I fear that the UK Government will stack the cards by having a range of people who think they did just fine to those who think they should have been more severe. The present report certainly suggests that this will be the case.
Opinions from the Unity News Network (UNN) editorial team & various contributors. | UNN always clearly distinguishes between news and opinion pieces and as an open minded outlet we publish views from a variety of people and organisation that do not necessarily reflect the views of UNN or its writers. Articles published under UNN Opinions are always opinion pieces and if published on behalf of a contributor will contain that authors name at the start of the piece.
