Since the British government announced that all Covid-19 restrictions would be scrapped from ‘Freedom Day’ on 19 July and told us to ‘live with the virus’, there have been over 15,000 deaths and more than 4.3 million new infections. The death rate remains at 800-1,000 people per week, with 1,000 hospitalisations daily, and these levels are set to rise again. Scientists have warned there could be 8,000 more deaths by Christmas if steps are not taken to control transmission. But this does not matter to the capitalists whose priority is keeping the economy open and profitable – something on which all sections of the ruling class and their political representatives both Labour and Tory agree. Together with the mass media they have normalised a regime of social murder. CHARLES CHINWEIZU reports.
Labour collusion
The British Medical Association (BMA), Independent Sage and the NHS Confederation, which represents healthcare providers, have urged the government to immediately move to ‘Plan B’ and implement a vaccine-plus strategy. This would involve: an enhanced roll-out of vaccines with support, including financial support, for self-isolating; ensuring public spaces are safe through ventilation; working from home and wearing masks in indoor spaces. The government has refused to do this.
The Labour Party has backed this refusal, with Keir Starmer saying on 21 October that he did not want ministers to change course for Plan B. On 24 October, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the ‘government have got to do more to make Plan A work’, but then changed her tune when asked whether Plan B should be introduced now, saying: ‘Yes, but let’s not let the government off the hook with Plan A either’. Never has Labour condemned a government policy which requires working class people to die to keep British capitalism going.
Covid-19 scepticism
Britain had the highest levels of infection and hospitalisation in Europe throughout summer and into late autumn, despite government and media attempts to play this down. Data from the Office for National Statistics estimates that 1.1 million people in England were infected in the week up to 6 November – one in 60 people. There have been large outbreaks in schools, for instance in Wales at least 130 schools had more than 20 cases. In October the infection rate among school children was as high as 9% and, although by November this was down to 4-5%, this is still a very high level.
The medicines regulator (MHRA) approved a childhood vaccine against Covid-19 in June, but the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) recommended it only to teens with serious medical conditions, citing marginal health gains and possible side-effects. JCVI members include Covid-sceptics such as Robert Dingwall, who minimise the effects of Covid-19 especially in children. It wasn’t until after schools resumed on 13 September that the government’s chief medical officers recommended a single dose for 12-15 year olds. The combination of dithering, slow implementation and parental confusion over conflicting messages has given fuel to the anti-vaxxers and people who are vaccine hesitant. As a result, schools are now crammed with unvaccinated, unmasked children, and have become virus hotspots just as immunity in the over-65s has begun to wane.
The JCVI minutes, published only in November, show a bizarre preoccupation with the rare vaccine side-effect of myocarditis – a temporary and treatable form of heart inflammation – and an almost dismissive attitude to the downsides of Covid-19, including child deaths. The JCVI did not even consider Long Covid but saw mass child infection as a way to ‘boost immunity in adults’. The JCVI also saw natural infection as superior to vaccine-induced immunity, contrary to scientific evidence that shows vaccinated people are 56% less likely than unvaccinated people to catch the virus, and 63% less likely to transmit to household contacts. That such an important body can push such unscientific nonsense shows how deep Covid-19 scepticism runs in the government and its yes-men scientists, and explains why Britain is Europe’s infection and death capital two years after the pandemic began.
Child vaccinations
The evidence dismissed by JCVI showed that fully vaccinating 80% of 12-17 year-olds would lead to ‘large reductions’ in infections, hospitalisation and deaths in the age group. Over 110 children have now died with Covid-19 as the underlying cause (85% directly from Covid-19) since the pandemic began, making Covid-19 one of the leading causes of child death. There are more child deaths from Covid-19 than from flu (30 children died of flu in 2019). Only 39% of 12-15 year-olds and 60% of 16-17 year-olds have received one dose. 69,000 children under 16 are now living with Long Covid, 10,000 for over a year. Infections have spread from children to all other age groups and, as a result, infections and deaths have risen in all age groups. The government has refused to invest in improved class-room ventilation, or reinstate mask-wearing, social distancing or contact tracing in schools.
US doctors began giving the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine to children aged 5-11 on 3 November after approval by the immunisation advisory panel of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The American Academy of Paediatrics said the vaccines ‘will protect children’s health and allow them to fully engage in all the activities that are so important to their health and development’. Although children are less likely to get sick, they can still be infected and be asymptomatic, and can spread Covid-19 to others. Children can also get paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome (PIMS-TS) – a severe but rare post-Covid complication, and experience Long Covid. A UK study identified 76 children under 13 with PIMS, and the CDC reports 5,526 in the US, of whom 48 had died as of 1 November.
There has been no response from the British government to the moves by the US, China, Cuba and other countries to vaccinate 2-11 year olds, and no attempt to learn anything from other countries. The 12 October report from the parliamentary Health and Social Care and Science and Technology Committees, Coronavirus: lessons learned to date, shows that the British government ignored the outstanding responses to Covid-19 from East Asian countries especially China, despite their experiences with SARS and MERS coronaviruses. Britain engaged in ‘a degree of groupthink consensus’ between itself and its secretive, official scientific advisers that didn’t include any public health experts or anyone from outside the UK. Its Covid-19 policy ‘was complex, inconsistent and opaque for most of the rest of 2020’. The report confirms what we said at the time and current policy shows that no lessons have been learned. The report also confirms that the ‘opaque’ £37bn NHS Test and Trace (which has nothing to do with the NHS), has ‘consistently failed to reach the 72-hour turnaround time’, has ‘been unable to respond to rising rates of transmission’ and is clearly failing to achieve ‘this central objective’. Test and Trace is still employing over 1,200 consultants at £1,000 plus a day, and both Accenture and Deloitte have picked up fresh contracts for aspects of Test and Trace worth nearly £100m.
Vaccine boosters
Over 15 million people in the UK, including healthcare workers, the over-40s and those considered vulnerable, have received a booster or third primary jab. From 22 November, 16-17 year-olds can also get a second dose but the government’s initial recommendation that only one dose was needed has sown doubt and encouraged hesitancy. There remains confusion over who is eligible, who is running the booster programmes and whether you need to book or be invited. The government has mixed up two separate ‘booster’ programmes: the third primary dose (for transplant or cancer patients) and the general public booster (initially for over-50s and now over-40s).
So far, 5.8 million people who qualify have not yet had a booster. GPs who were central to the roll-out of the initial two doses regimen (75% of vaccinations) have opted out, being too short-staffed to do it again with no new resources or support, leaving the inaccessible and unfamiliar mass vaccination centres which elderly people are reluctant to travel to. It will be February 2022 at the earliest before the booster programme is completed. As a result, the NHS is too overwhelmed to provide proper emergency care: patients are waiting on average four hours in ambulances backed up outside hospitals before they get into A&E.
Although vaccination is clearly crucial to preventing the spread of Covid-19, the government’s vaccination-only strategy is now unravelling. In October 2,470 fully vaccinated people over 70 died in the UK. European countries with the same or higher levels of vaccination as the UK (67%) are now reintroducing restrictions. Austria (65% population fully vaccinated), the Netherlands (73%) and Germany (67%) are all in lockdown or increasing their restrictions. These countries also kept mask wearing and other mitigations in place for longer. No level of vaccination alone will be enough to control Delta which is now confirmed as 70% more transmissible than the Alpha variant. To make matters worse, one of 45 new sub-lineages of Delta, AY.4.2 or Delta Plus, is 15% more transmissible than the original Delta, and has been widely detected across Britain.
Phasing out testing?
Crucial to giving an impression of ‘cases falling’, ‘pandemic over’ and ‘living with it’, the government is making testing less accessible. Under the pretext of saving money, the Treasury has been pushing to scrap both free PCR tests and the rapid lateral flow device (LFD) tests. At the start of November, testing of vaccinated travellers ended only to be reinstated by the end of the month in response to the new Omicron variant. Some MPs have suggested that testing of children should also stop. In addition, the government has not updated the list of Covid-19 symptoms on its website since the start of the pandemic. The symptoms of Delta are more like those of a cold and so many infected people are not seeking tests as they do not think they are infected. The government is also proposing that contacts of those who have tested positive for Covid-19 should be required only to take a test rather than self-isolate as at present.
The government has been at the forefront of Covid-19 misinformation which claims the pandemic is more or less over, but we are at the beginning of yet another wave as we go into winter. The government has no long-term plan except vaccination, but with lower uptake, waning immunity and new variants, such as the recently discovered Omicron, there is no real plan to reduce transmission. There is a chronic shortage of social care beds causing delayed hospital discharges, long waits in A&E and paramedic crews are queuing for hours before they can hand their very sick patients over to overworked hospital staff. This in turn causes exceptional pressure on the ambulance service. Once again, the poorest working class people will bear the brunt of an assault with which Labour has colluded. At what point will the working class say enough is enough?
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No 285, December 2021/January 2022
