The government can’t stop congratulating itself and the “public” for the “incredible vaccination effort”. Yes, as usual, good news is meant to bury the bad!
The facts are also buried. The last thing Johnson wants, is to remind everyone of how his leadership of the “fight against Covid” has produced the highest death rate among rich countries. He’d rather not admit that there are still more people in hospital than during the peak of the first Covid wave.
But what about the horrific death rates from Covid - 6 times higher - among those with a disability, including those with learning difficulties? This was fully documented after the first wave! So how can there be any excuse for not having placed these highly vulnerable people in a top priority group for vaccination? Yet for now, they remain in group 6 and are meant to wait at least another 4 weeks for their jabs!
As for the rate of deaths in care homes, despite vaccinations having started already on 8 December among their residents, an average of 1,000 deaths are being registered every week. A large number are apparently due to the more infectious “Kent” variant. And by the way, the government hasn’t let it be generally known that this variant causes more severe disease, either. Nor can anyone be sure that the “extraordinary” vaccination regime it has implemented will actually be anywhere near as effective as it boasts, especially against mutant viruses like this one, or worse.
Yes, there are still many question marks, even if Johnson appears daily dressed in a white coat at one or other vaccination site talking up his “programme for the end of all lockdowns”.
To make a pretence at seriousness, there are yet more unserious government measures, like the “Red list quarantine”: a money-maker for hotels, but it sure won’t stop virus variants fast-tracking in (and out) of the country! Or the huge fines and 10-year jail sentences threatened for those who flout the rules. But as ever, there are no fines at all for the non-essential bosses who prevent workers from self-isolating, because they expect them to live on thin air (or £95.85/week SSP)!
Indeed, workers cannot even take paid time off to get tests. And while the government may have offered on-site testing to companies, this is not happening for obvious reasons: “time being money” to the bosses, setting this up and implementing it, is just too much profit-consuming “bother”.
Yes, there’s one thing that no virus and no vaccine can “change” and that is the nature of capitalism. However, Covid has helped to show it up for what it really is - a rotten system that can only produce rotten politics and rotten politicians. Only the working class can change that.