The British approach to coronavirus: by Grabthar’s hammer, what a savings

Still from AFP video

I’d far rather have the action taken by our government than the UK’s when it comes to flattening the curve on coronavirus, and the British response reminds me of this 2018 post.
   Just because the chief scientific adviser there has a knighthood and talks posh isn’t a reason to trust him, his judgement or even his “expertise” if science says otherwise.
   When my father went into hospital in September 2019, the doctors’ lack of treatment—because they determined he was ‘dying’ and that that was sufficient reason to deny him the essentials of life and that it would be a ‘miracle’ if he regained consciousness, whereas my partner and I determined he was ‘dehydrated’ (we were right)—I was forced to ask the palliative nurse about this so-called ‘policy’. Dad did, after all, wake up after we demanded he be given saline and sustenance within hours, leading me to wonder just why a team of doctors were so obsessed with killing him.
   ‘Who’s next?’ I asked.
   She looked at me quizzically.
   ‘Who’s next? Is it the differently abled? Homosexuals? Jews? I’m sorry, but the parallels are all too evident to me.’
   During this time, a Dr Mark Jones in the UK came into my Twittersphere and we exchanged a number of Tweets.
   Mark essentially said that this was an unwritten UK government policy, and showed me numerous examples of elder neglect and abuse in his country. Maybe I should say ‘our country’ since it’s the only one I have a current passport for, having got too busy to renew my Kiwi one (not that it would have much use at present).
   The reasons were financial. The fewer OAPs there were, the less they’d have to pay out in pensions.
   Therefore, it was no surprise that Dad’s treatment at a British-run rest home compared less favourably than Te Hopai, where he wound up, although in Bupa’s defence they have taken our complaints seriously, apologized, and have invited us to see the improvements.
   The less generous might have branded Mark a conspiracy theorist but Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK’s chief scientific adviser, seems to advance a position directly compatible with Mark’s observations.
   From what I can make out, he’s quite happy for the UK to get infected with coronavirus with the expectation that 60 per cent of the Union will develop immunity—although from all my reading of this approach, a proportion of older people who contract it will die. It appears a callous approach to just let a disease come—the UK isn’t closing its borders or banning mass gatherings, but instead is welcoming its microbic visitor with crumpets and tea. Yes, they are advising those who feel sick to self-isolate, and that is sensible, but it’s the rest that makes little sense.
   Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson preempts this as he said without emotion, ‘Many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time.’
   Even Jeremy Hunt appeared to break ranks with the government in one interview.
   The likely result will be a thinning out of British OAPs.
   When I first told my partner this, she was shocked, but I advanced my own conspiracy theory: ‘If you begin with the premise that Dominic Cummings is out to destroy Britain—its institutions, and now its people—then all of this fits his agenda.’
   The new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, after Sajid Javid found himself in a position where even he couldn’t go along with what was being peddled by 10 Downing Street, making you wonder just what horrors await, will doubtless be thrilled at the savings to the UK pension fund.

PS.: Thank you, Tomas Pueyo (the man in the screen), for reacting the way you did to Prof John Edmunds’ position that the UK has given up on containing the virus and that people will die. You have spoken, silently, for many of us.—JY