With the United Kingdom about to go into a second lockdown, it’s become clear to me in recent months that the UK government under Boris Johnson is simply incapable of rolling out a coherent anti-COVID-19 strategy and that it’s a case of every person for themselves in figuring out how to fight this.
I am incredulous in saying this, given that the UK excels in medical science and has the treasure of the National Health Service but has been unable to get its strategy right to fight COVID-19. This might relate to the fact that this is a government led by Boris Johnson, with whom I personally have little faith. has he ever done a proper day’s work in his life? It might also relate to the fact that the UK government’s institutional capacity to think through a credible crisis response was undermined by being spread thin already because of all the focus on Brexit – maybe that is just my Remain biases coming out there.
It might be that Her Majesty’s government cannot simply multitask. I also rather think that in recent months it has had the multiple objectives of fighting COVID-19 and saving the economy. As any economist knows, it’s hard to succeed in anything with multiple objectives. But it was always going to be a challenge to keep infection rates low when the government was trying its darndest to get everyone back into the economy – eating in restaurants and, unfortunately, infecting each other again.
So having given up in getting anything coherent from the UK government I constructed my own sensible rules for fighting COVID.
1. Wear a face mask – it’s beyond me why the UK government took months to reach the conclusion that face masks will reduce infections. It’s like is n’t this totally obvious?
2. Socially distance – it sounds obvious, but it amazes me when I occasionally venture out for a walk how many people – joggers especially – make zero effort to walk around me when I walk down the road. I do try and make a detour around them as I walk towards them, but it’s so annoying when a jogger just runs up from behind and makes no effort to run around me and just breathes all over me, I assume. That’s just plain selfish.
3. If the UK government says something should start in a few days’ time, ignore them and start it immediately. I could not understand for the life of me why the UK government gave people days warning to wear face masks, or for the introduction of the rule of Six. Why wait? If the threat is so serious as to require wearing face masks or the Rule of Six, the need is like now, not in a few days or a week’s time, so why wait? What the UK government should have said is we want you to start wearing face masks now, but we understand you might not be prepared so we will give you a few days before we start enforcing but if you can wear them now.
4. If you can work from home, do so. Living in London why on earth do we need public transport and the tube is packed with commuters again and spreading the virus? The mayor of London is right here. Let the people who have to work or go to school use the public transport system as a priority but reduce flow to reduce the chances of infection.
I know city center business are going to a struggle as a result, but work from home people will presumably spend more now in their local communities, and this looks set to be a long-term trend. City center business will have to adjust, eventually.
5. Kids probably need to go back to school. They are young and it looks like they are less prone to the worst effects of the virus. Maybe getting kids back to school will be the easiest way to bring herd immunity. It does raise the issue of older school staff being vulnerable to infection – but maybe these staff should be allowed to work from home and remote tutor, and the government should hire a load of young people furloughed as teaching assistants to turn on the zoom in class for older teachers working from home.
6. Limit travel and social interaction still wherever possible. Do we really need to travel intercity or internationally still for this winter season? Were holidays this summer really necessary? I think not, but minimizing intercity travel would at least reduce cross-community transmission.
