Home Secretary Priti Patel sets out details of the Government’s new forced quarantine policy

HOME SECRETARY Priti Patel set out the details of the Government’s new forced quarantine policy for arrivals into the UK yesterday. Kate Andrews in the Spectator has the details.

Arrivals from 22 “high-risk” areas will soon be forced to quarantine in a hotel when they arrive in Britain. There will be no exceptions to the rule, and travellers must stay put for 10 days, even if they test negative for COVID-19. The “red list” of countries include Portugal, South Africa, Brazil and Cape Verde.

This crackdown was a long time coming. When Denmark found a mutant strain of Covid last autumn amongst its mink farms, the UK became the only country in the world to close its borders to anyone from there. Did the fast response acknowledge regret among ministers about not being stricter on the border last spring? Quite possibly. This time, the Government has been much clearer about the reasoning behind this decision. Priti Patel told the Commons:

“The Government’s focus is on protecting the UK’s world-leading vaccination programme – a programme that we should be proud of. And reducing the risk of a new strain of the virus being transmitted from someone coming into the UK.“

The details of this quarantine scheme are still up in the air and it is not yet clear when it will come into effect. But despite these tougher measures, it seems that some in the Cabinet wanted the Government to go further. Had Patel had it her way, the measures would have extended to everyone arriving in Britain. Boris Johnson stopped short of this for now. But once the infrastructure is in place, it is easy to see how arrivals from any country, with no advanced warning, could be affected.

Is this an attempt to emulate Australia and New Zealand? Except their strategy was to wait in splendid isolation for a vaccine. But we’re closing borders after the vaccine has arrived because we’re worried about new vaccine-resistant variants. The problem with this is that the logic seems permanent – after all, there will always be a risk of some new mutant variant emerging. As Kate says: “Britain will be one of the first countries to close its borders to countries based on a hypothetical scenario – the possibility of a mutant Covid strain that can evade vaccines – rather than an immediate threat.” Such excessive caution bodes ill for the future and a return to normal." *

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Don’t You Know There’s A War On? by Les May

I LIVE in Rochdale which is included in the Greater Manchester ‘Local Lockdown’. Last Friday a friend of mine, who like me is in the ‘vulnerable’ age group, met up for a chat with three friends in a Rochdale town centre pub. When I asked him next morning if people from four households meeting up fell within the recommendations; he said he did not know. I couldn’t be of any help because, like him, I am confused, though common sense says no. The day after another friend in the same age group visited Clitheroe with her daughter. Does it fall within the guidelines? No idea! And it’s not just individuals like me who are confused. Two weeks ago another friend in the same age group had to briefly visit the Rochdale Council offices at ‘The Fashion Corner’. Prominently displayed was a notice about ‘Track and Trace’. That didn’t mean whoever was behind the desk knew what to do. She was heard to ask whether my friend’s contact details should be recorded.

A few nights ago an Oldham cafe owner was interviewed for a local news programme after further restrictions were announced. He pleaded for some clarity about exactly what these further restrictions were. A couple of days later the Labour leader of Pendle Council said in an interview that he would have to apply further restrictions, but that neither he nor the police who would have to enforce them, had been informed by the government what they were.

Nor is it clear that all supermarkets are being proactive in insisting upon masks being worn in store thought this is supposedly mandatory in areas with a local lockdown. It’s a similar picture on buses and trains. The excuse being given at one large supermarket is that staff do not have the power to refuse entry, only the police have that power. I suggest the real reason is that supermarkets and transport providers fear confronting people who insist upon behaving in an anti-social manner by not wearing a mask. Again lack of clarity about what is mandatory is at the root of the problem.

Today it was announced that following WHO guidelines children in secondary schools in areas subject to a local lockdown would have to wear masks. It was also announced that the the government would NOT be following WHO guidelines which recommend that all teachers over 60, that’s about 2% of all teachers, and teachers who are pregnant should wear ‘medical grade’ masks. Outside these areas headteachers can decide on whether masks should be used. This is a decision ripe for conflict as many teachers may decide they are being told to work under unsafe conditions. Tomorrow of course the rules may change. Boris hasn’t yet learned you cannot please everyone all the time.

Since 3 July the average number of new cases of Covid19 has risen from 631 in the first half to 833 from mid July to early August and now to 1077 mid to late August. Since 2 July there have been nearly 42,000 new cases reported to 23 August. The explanation offered for this rise is that it is because more tests are being carried out; a.k.a ‘The Trump Excuse’. This is plausible in the case of the change in average new infections between the first and second period, 28% more tests against 32% increase in the average daily rate, but it is not plausible as an explanation for a rise between the second and third periods of 0.15% rise in the number of tests, averaged over a seven day period, being accompanied by a 29% rise in the average daily rate of infection.

The data upon which I based my calculations can be found at: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/testing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_the_United_Kingdom

I’ve not yet spoken to any of the people I know who can tell me what they are aware that Rochdale Council has done during this period of ‘local lockdown’ to play its part in breaking transmission of the virus. Since 30 July when this period began the only thing I have been aware of is a TV interview with council leader Brett and an A5 leaflet from RMBC which popped through my door. This is against a background of a seemingly ever changing and vague set of rules/guidelines/recommendations from Boris et al.

When I was a child polio was the disease that parents dreaded which is why it was called ‘Infantile Paralysis’. A safe and effective vaccine has reduced the number of cases reported annually to less than 100 throughout the world. The virus which causes Covid 19 disease is going to be with us for the foreseeable future. We will only beat it when we have an effective vaccine and/or an effective cure. Until then the only thing we can do is adjust our behaviour to minimise the risk of transmission. Adjusting our behaviour means being in contact with as few people as possible, physically distancing ourselves from those we do meet, wearing a mask that covers our mouth and nose to prevent passing on the virus by coughing or via spittle when talking, and being scrupulously careful to wash or sanitise our hands after touching surfaces which might be carrying to virus.

These are irksome things to do for most of us. We’ve a devil dancing on our shoulder telling us to just get on with our lives. We need constant reminders as to why these things are important. It’s got to be Education, Education, Education! And this is where I think Rochdale Council has failed miserably because it is ‘just going through the motions’. Where are the large notices on every lamp post and every shop window and every billboard, reminding people of what they need to do to beat the virus? Non-existent so far as I can tell. Is anyone visiting local supermarkets and shops to remind them of their responsibility? My local corner shop certainly needs a visit. Is anyone liaising with the police to make sure the local rules are being followed?

There’s an old saying that ‘the best manure is the farmers boot’: Are you listening Mr Brett?

What’s An Essential Worker?

by Les May

IN the late 1940s and early 50s my dad worked for Rochdale Cleansing Department.  At different times he had three jobs; he worked ‘on the tubs’, which meant he went round the outlying districts collecting half barrel sized containers for disposal at the sewage works of what is euphemistically called ‘night soil’, he was also a road sweeper and a dustman.

Our house was filled with books which had been discarded along with the ash from coal fires, I had a rocking horse from the same sources and a large ‘tin bath’ also came his way and hung from a large nail on the backyard wall.

The clamour for diversity does not seem to stretch to waste disposal, at least in Rochdale. It’s a job which seems to be more of less exclusively the preserve of white men, and I’ve yet to hear a media feminist making a song and dance about it.  Selective outrage is the order of the day.

I was reminded of my dad when I heard the advice that anyone who could, should ‘work from home’.  We’d soon notice if our bins were not collected for three months, but who thinks of referring to ‘dustmen’ as essential workers?

We hear the news that the government is at last beginning to meet the desperate need for doctors and nurses to have the best possible personal protective equipment.  We are told to wash our hands frequently, to avoid buses, meeting friends and to keep at least two metres apart if we leave the house.

What we don’t hear is how people like dustmen are going to do any of these things. They will spend part of the day in a crowded cab travelling to the start of their round.  They’ll handle dozens of bins not knowing whether the person who put them out is suffering from Covid19, not yet showing symptoms, but infected and shedding virus particles or fit as a butcher’s dog, and each evening they will go home to their family.

At the very least they should be provided with adequate amounts of hand gel, a plentiful supply of wet wipes and anything else which might help to prevent them becoming infected with the virus causing Covid19.

There is one thing we can all do to reduce the risk of infection being passed to them. We can sterilise the handles of our bins after we put them out.  Wiping them over with a solution of one part bleach and twenty parts water (0.25% bleach) and allowing this to remain on the handles as long as possible will go a long way to doing this.

Just because you have no symptoms of Covid19 now does not mean that you are not incubating the disease.  You’ll miss your dustman if he does not call next week because he is ill. 

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Double or Quits? The Numbers Game

by Les May

I HAVE heard the same story twice in the last two days, once repeated to me by a friend and the other today on the US Washington Journal programme on C-SPAN.

Essentially the complaint is that the dangers of the Covid19 pandemic is being exaggerated because the number of deaths so far in the UK and the US is no more than would be expected from the effects of seasonal flu.

But the people who make this argument betray a fundamental ignorance about what is important here. It’s not the actual number of infections which is important, it’s the RATE at which those numbers CHANGE. If this is known it is possible to approximately predict how many infections there will be at any time in the future unless measures are taken to prevent this happening.

One way of thinking about the rate of change is to find out how many days it takes for the number of recorded infections to double. In the UK this is estimated to be between 2 and 4 days. If we take a mid-value of three days and assume we start when the number of infections is 1000 then we can predict the number of infections in a month’s time.

Day 3: 2000, Day 6: 4000, Day 9: 8000, Day 12: 16000, Day 15: 32000,

Day 18: 64000, Day 21: 128000, Day 24: 256000, Day 24: 256000,

Day 27: 512000, Day 30: 1024000.

If the time taken for the number of infections to double is 2 days it would take three weeks for a million people to be infected; it the time to double is 4 days it would take 6 weeks to reach a million recorded infections.

The data from China suggest that the mortality rate for recorded infections is about 4%. This translates into about 40,000 deaths if we allow the number of recorded infections to reach 1 million. Note that by recorded infections I mean medically diagnosed cases and this does not include the unrecorded infections which result in self diagnosis.

Although the government have been slow to implement the measures which could help to prevent very large numbers of people being infected, they have finally done so. We have a choice; we can either accept the restrictions on how we conduct our lives for the next few months or we can ignore the advice we are given, adopt a laissez-faire attitude and suffer the consequences.

I have little doubt that if people continue to ignore the advice we have been given the government will impose more stringent measures which will be more intrusive and more restrictive than what we are being asked to do at present.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?470430-2/washington-journal-news-headlines-viewer-calls (at 22m 41s on video)

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/flattening-the-covid-19-curves/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/03/17/why-exponential-growth-is-so-scary-for-the-covid-19-coronavirus/

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Whingeing Won’t Stop the Virus

by Les May

LAST Monday the ‘i’ newspaper devoted more than a third of its letters page to three long letters complaining that people over 70 have been referred to as ‘elderly’.  The day after Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, who likes to style herself as ‘a leftie liberal, anti-racist, feminist, Muslim’, decided to devote her entire column in the paper to the same topic.

You can get a flavour of it from opening sentences, ‘Who are you calling “elderly”? Why should those over 70 quietly acquiesce to house arrest?’  Being something of a snob she could not resist the opportunity to tell us how wonderful she is; ‘I have never worked as hard as I do now. I pen columns, broadcast, write books, run a charity, speaks at events, teach at university, and am reading dozens of books as chair of the RSL Christopher Bland Prize for authors over the age of 50.’   Followed by what looks rather like self praise; Look around you and you will see many others too, shining and unstoppable in their third age.’ (my emphasis) Yasmin may suffer from chronic whingeing but she certainly does not suffer from modesty.

This is whingeing for the sake of it. It suggests to me that older people have caught the habit. so commonly seen in younger people, of complaining about what people say rather than what they do. Open your mouth and say something some thin skinned individual, sometimes called a ‘snowflake’, does not like and you are likely to be labelled as ‘racist, homophobic, transphobic, antisemitic, islamophobic etc’.  Whatever I may think of Boris Johnson, a.k.a. Pinocchio, he is certainly not a racist.

For those who claim to be ‘of the left’ whingeing like this is letting the noise drown out the signal.  As in many other parts of the world our biggest problem in the UK is inequality.  What Yasmin did not bother to mention is that there is a steep gradient between poorer and better off women in terms of both longevity and years without illness or a limiting condition, a fact that will probably be reflected in deaths due to Corvid19.

Producing a Twitter storm about what someone has said or getting rid of the ‘Tampon Tax’ is viewed as a major victory when it has achieved little or nothing. I calculate that women will be better off by a whole 1p per week taken over their lifetime.   Some victory!

When I first heard that people over 70 might in a week or so be asked to voluntarily isolate themselves for a period months, I interpreted it as there being a window of just a few days to prepare myself and my wife for this. Instead of whingeing the letter writers would have been better employed thinking out the practicalities.  Contrary to Alibhai-Brown’s OTT comment, no one is going to place us under ‘house arrest’. It is advice; take it and protect yourself, leave it and accept any consequences.

Will Yasmin and the letter writers who object to the term ‘elderly’ be happy to forgo their pension, free prescriptions and free local travel, three benefits they get precisely because they are elderly? Thought not!

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/whinge

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