Delta Farce

Here we are again. In the endless misery go round that is pandemic Britain.

Boris was warned about the Delta variant but imported it anyway. This in turn, with our lax attitude to border biosecurity, means we could also be exporting it. This should be a resignation matter. It won't be because he's a pathological self serving liar who will say whatever is needed, greased up through the compliant media, to abrogate all responsibility. His health secretary, the same.

The Delta variant is ripping through the population. Cases were plateauing throughout late spring precisely because of its mitigating effect on falling cases. Growth is such that it has now outstripped that and we have seen cases virtually double (at least) within a week. All of this happening under current restrictions. I say restrictions, truth is there are few left. As those restrictions ease the inertial builds. Coupled with the clement weather it means people are more likely to push those restrictions. Venues less likely to be strict. How widespread that is, I have no way of knowing.

We do know that schools have been a major driver for the spread of the variant. Public Health England has not been as forthcoming with the facts as it should. This after a year of schools in shellshock. No support for staff, and, crucially, kids. The government's own advisors walk out when protects, which will no doubt start from a position of insufficiency, are short changed. Gavin Williamson doesn't care about your children unless they elect democratically, through debate, to remove posters of the Queen from their spaces. The Tories would rather stoke the culture war, the only means of real support they can count on given their dismal policy failings.

So it would appear a fait accompli that the vaunted, and facile, freedom day is going to be postponed. A measly four weeks. A drop in the ocean; as if that will negatively impact anything when they've already removed the requirement for children to universally mask up in schools, for example. But the problem is that the variant has spread in the context of where we are now, never mind where we'l be in four weeks. 

How many people do they think they can vaccinate in four weeks? I calculate we've managed 2% a week. About 45% have been vaccinated (two doses) thus far. That's taken six months. As such it could mean the initial cohort may well be coming to the end of their protection. We won't know, I guess, until such people start showing up sick, despite being vaccinated. The NHS has done their best, despite the government pelting them with rocks simultaneously, but this is a huge undertaking. Half the country in six months would have been fine if it weren't for the Tories ignoring sensible bio security border controls during a pandemic. That people are still going abroad for their holidays blows my mind.

All this means that we will need to see a roll back in restrictions. The one thing Boris assured us wouldn't happen. But then we all know what his promises are worth (except perhaps his wives). I can't see how this can be avoided. It's in the community now. That has always been the danger. Once it slips containment, thanks to our dreadful test and trace and quarantining policies of which Hancock says improvement = gaming the system (go figure), we risk further lockdowns. That's the only way to contain it. Current restrictions clearly won't, because they aren't, stop it.

July is also closer to the Autumn, and thus the time of year when people are less inclined to be outdoors. This is the worst time for the virus. Even if we contain Delta by then (it took 3 months over Winter during a strict lockdown to contain the Kent variant) what's to stop the next variant? Certainly not the Tories.