‘Freedom day’ on 19 July 2021 marked a new round in the Tory government’s war on the working class. It spelled an end to most Covid regulations; it was freedom for businesses to resume their exploitation of the working class unhampered by such restrictions as mask-wearing in enclosed spaces or the need to have regard to social distancing. But for the working class, it was freedom for thousands more to die of Covid-19 in the weeks to come and freedom for hundreds of thousands more to be laid low by Long Covid. It was ‘freedom day’ for bosses to tell employees to delete the NHS Covid-19 app to put a stop to the ‘pingdemic’ which had led to hundreds of thousands to self-isolate in July, and ‘freedom day’ for them to demand that ever-expanding classes of essential workers be exempt from any need to self-isolate if they were fully vaccinated. This was class war as the government shed any responsibility for the management of the pandemic and passed it on to individuals. CHARLES CHINWEIZU and ROBERT CLOUGH report.
‘Freedom day’ was supposed to have been on 21 June, but rising infection rates driven by the Delta (formerly Indian) variant had forced the government to postpone it for four weeks. Yet on 12 July, despite the continuing rise in cases and hospitalisation rates, it was confirmed that from 19 July, barring a ‘dramatic worsening of data’:
- most legal Covid-19 restrictions would end in England;
- the ‘work from home’ guidance would be scrapped, with employers ‘working with staff to agree a return to the workplace’, deciding what a ‘Covid-secure’ workplace looks like, and which safety measures to implement;
- mask wearing would no longer be a legal requirement on public transport or in shops but a matter of personal discretion and responsibility;
- the social-distancing rule would end, with no restrictions on capacity or crowding;
- foreign travel would be liberalised further with 143 countries added to the ‘amber list,’ and doubly-jabbed travellers under no need to quarantine on their return;
- the school ‘bubble’ system would end and self-isolation of pupils be replaced with a daily rapid testing system.
Yet on both 16 and 17 July reported cases exceeded 50,000 and actual cases on 15 July were 60,669. Hospitalisation rates were rising by 40% week on week, as were recorded deaths. On 30 June there were 1,936 Covid-19 inpatients; on 28 July there were 6,036. This was deemed not to be a ‘dramatic worsening’ of the data despite the pleas from the NHS; Queen Elizabeth hospital trust in Birmingham, one of the largest in the country, had to stop elective procedures for two days in July because it had run out of space due to the rise in numbers of Covid-19 patients.
Living with Covid-19
The government says we now need to learn to live with the virus. The Labour Party has essentially agreed. What this really means is that we have to learn to live with a government which has decided that a certain number of people will die to maximise the exploitation of the working class. Hundreds of thousands more will suffer Long Covid to the same end. The Labour Party agrees with this.
But the wealthy and powerful do not think they should have to suffer the consequence of these decisions. While workers were forced back into cramped, poorly ventilated working conditions, Parliament continued to sit with vast social distancing. The former Health Secretary Matt Hancock thought he could get away with breaching Covid rules by carrying on with his friend Gina Coladangelo, whom he had appointed as a non-executive director of the Department of Health only for a photo of the pair in a passionate clinch to appear in the press on 25 June. Even then Prime Minister Boris Johnson refused to sack him – Covid-19 regulations are for little people – and it was only because of a storm of public outrage that Hancock resigned the next day.
No cowering
Hancock was replaced by Sajid Javid, who immediately told us to ‘learn to live with the virus’ and without any further ado stated that come what may, opening up would definitely happen on 19 July – even though infection rates were already climbing exponentially. Javid is definitely on the side of big business – he has had to give up a role as adviser to artificial intelligence company C3.ai for £151,000 for 10-12 days’ work a year, £1,500 or so per hour. He then contracted Covid-19; on his recovery he told us all not to ‘cower’ before the disease – this from a Health Secretary who is nominally responsible for the nation’s wellbeing. He had to apologise. Boris Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak had been in contact with him, but rather than self-isolate, they tried to claim a completely fraudulent participation in a pilot study which was looking at whether a daily testing regime could replace self-isolation for those who had had contact with a Covid-19 case. They had to rapidly backtrack; later, the government could not name the study, who was carrying it out and what its protocols were.
Pingdemic
As ‘freedom day’ approached, the hospitality industry faced a crisis: a shortage of labour exacerbated by the so-called ‘pingdemic’ – workers who were being pinged by the NHS Covid-19 app and who were therefore being told to self-isolate for ten days: more than 600,000 people between 7 and 15 July and 689,000 the following week. That number reached one million if those contacted directly by Test and Trace are included. Immediately the media went into overdrive, deciding that the Test and Trace system was not useless enough and must be completely recalibrated so that workers can infect each other without fear or favour. Business Minister Paul Scully said workers should disregard the app instruction to self-isolate – it was only advisory. Within a few days an estimated 20% of all the Covid-19 app users had deleted the app from their phones. Many were concerned that they could not afford to self-isolate if they were pinged: many would get no income, others might receive statutory sick pay, set at a miserable weekly rate of £96.35, and a few a local authority payment of £500. Meanwhile the BBC reported on 29 July that:
- Hospitality management were telling staff to delete the app because venues had had to close for lack of workers.
- Staff were being ordered not to isolate but to take a lateral flow test and if it were negative, to turn into work.
- Staff were being instructed to wear exempt badges rather than masks to make customers feel at home.
- Others were being told not to enter a positive test into the app in case it led to the closure of the venue.
There are 5.8 million small businesses in Britain, and they provide the social basis for the demand to end all Covid-19 restrictions; 1.4 million had employees totalling 8.7 million. They are in thrall to the banks: the British Business Bank reports that small business indebtedness to the banks rose by 82% in the year 2019 to 2020, reaching £103bn. They are dependent on supply chains which reach back to the giant monopolies such as Unilever or Diageo in the hospitality industry. They are the ‘small masters who [are] the most unscrupulous and grasping exploiters of hired labour’ (Lenin), and they are proving that as they force staff not only to disregard their personal safety but to work 50-60 hours a week to overcome a shortage of labour.
Pandemic out of control
Although infection rates fell after ‘freedom day’, this was a temporary phenomenon; the true impact of ‘freedom day’ was never going to be immediate, and as we go to press, the daily number of positive tests is rising once again and on 30 July reached 29,622 cases. Even if the rate remained static it would mean one million new infections by the end of August; with 10-12% of such infections resulting in Long Covid, that will mean a further 100,000 cases to add to the estimated one million people in the UK who were suffering from the syndrome (ONS report, 1 July). Of these, 856,000 people had symptoms for more than 12 weeks after first testing positive, and 385,000 for more than one year.
Comforted by the government’s blasé approach, vaccine take-up by younger cohorts has collapsed: between 11 and 27 July daily rates for a first vaccination fell to an average of 47,299. This means that it will be many months before all adults in Britain are fully vaccinated, leaving plenty of space and time for more vaccine-resistance variants to emerge. The NHS is reporting a recent increase in two viral respiratory infections especially among children, which is creating major diagnostic and isolation complications within many hospitals.
‘Moral emptiness’ and Labour ‘opposition’
On 7 July Mike Ryan, the Executive Director for the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, condemned the Tory government’s strategy as one of mass infection which amounted to ‘moral emptiness and epidemiological stupidity’. On the same day, 122 scientists led by Deepti Gurdasani, wrote an open letter in The Lancet to the government describing the strategy as ‘dangerous and premature’ and creating a ‘fertile ground for the emergence of vaccine-resistant variants’. They demanded that the government ‘delay complete re-opening until everyone, including adolescents, have been offered vaccination and uptake is high, and until mitigation measures, especially adequate ventilation (through investment in CO2 monitors and air filtration devices) and spacing (eg by reducing class sizes), are in place in schools.’ Their concerns were echoed at a webinar held on 17 July by 1,200 scientists across the world.
The charge of ‘moral emptiness’ applies as much to the Labour Party as it does to the Tory government. Its policy of ‘constructive engagement’ has made it complicit in the government’s approach to the pandemic. It supported ‘freedom day’ with minor caveats over mask-wearing and social distancing regulations; as we go to press, leader Sir Keir Starmer is urging the government to bring forward the 16 August date set for ending self-isolation requirements for the doubly vaccinated ‘to avoid a summer of chaos for British businesses and British families.’ He adds ‘The government’s slapdash approach to this global pandemic is crippling our economy and creating real problems for businesses and families alike.’ (Financial Times, 30 July 2021) The deaths of 129,515 people are ignored; a future of rising infections and deaths dismissed as ‘problems’ for families, but first and foremost in his concerns are the economy and businesses. The government is merely ‘slapdash’, careless rather than criminal, irresponsible rather than deliberate in the way it has ensured the deaths of so many people, and is just being too slow in putting people back in danger. This is not opposition: it is endorsement however mealy-mouthed.
The pandemic is a class question, and the Tory government has always treated it as such. Billions have been passed to big business in an effort to prevent the entire system from collapsing; £37bn to the operators of the Test and Trace system alone while government debt has risen by £385bn. Chancellor Sunak is preparing to announce cuts to public services of up to £17bn a year according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, despite the pressures of Covid-19. It is the working class who will be forced to pay, and Labour will ensure that it does so by opposing any resistance. It is way past time to take to the streets.
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No 283, August/September 2021
