Click to listen – running time 5 minutes, 30 seconds.
In his infamous “Sunday Address” on 10th May, Boris Johnson abandoned the Stay at Home message.
As a result, the UK lock-down is rapidly relaxing, and as it does so, we’ll increasingly be going about our business, but with the constant fear of catching the virus.
Trying to get back to normal, but everything – travel, the shops, bumping into friends – laced with anxiety.
Did I just make a mistake? Did I just touch something I shouldn’t have touched? Did that person just breathe on me?
At all costs, we have to avoid catching it. Right?
But, if you think about it, there’s something worse than going out and catching it….
Here’s my story about where I was on the day we gave up Contact Tracing, on 12th March….
About how I did something worse than going out and catching it.
And about the little flashbacks of trauma which I thought were behind me.
Click to listen – running time 5 minutes, 30 seconds.
This audio essay was written and recorded for BBC Radio Four’s Today Programme in the days following the abandonment of the Stay at Home message. It aired, in a slightly different version, on 26 May.
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For eleven days in March, our government put up its hands and offered a white flag to the virus.
It’s safe to say the virus was unmoved by that surrender.
Since then, it has taken 54,300 British lives.
Chris Giles, Economics Editor, Financial Times, 6 May 2020
And that’s a “cautious estimate”.
New cases are now rising, at 6,111 per day.
Worldometer, 7 May 2020
And that’s the official number.
Let’s just say that again. Six thousand, one hundred and eleven new, confirmed cases per day.
And we know that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
As we still don’t have community testing, those 6,100 will be almost exclusively people arriving in a bad way at hospitals. Most cases are never tested.
Remember, too, that not all people who are taken into hospital with Covid-19 test positive. I was one such person.
Covid could have taken me, but I don’t appear in the figures. So even those who end up in hospital aren’t all included in that massive number.
If there are 6,100 known cases, we must conclude that there are tens of thousands more.
Every.
Single.
Day.
By the way, how does our new cases graph compare with other countries?
It’s not pretty. But, despite the bleak numbers and the ugly graph, the talk is of “easing lock-down.”
An announcement is promised – curiously, ominously – outside working hours on Sunday.
One extraordinary, baffling, criminally negligent decision in Britain’s maddest-ever March is, if not forgivable, at least mitigated by its context: it was made while deaths totalled a handful.
But now, in Britain’s saddest-ever May, when nightmare numbers have become chilling reality, what possible excuse could there be?
Is our capricious government poised to make another wilfully-deadly decision, come Sunday? Whether or not you are a person of faith, only prayer remains.
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The start of May, traditionally a day of celebration around the world, marking the coming of spring, the moving of cattle out to summer pastures – a new season of life and warmth and hope – should have been a turning point in our national conversation.
The opportunity was there.
Last Monday, 27th April, Boris Johnson promised a new tone in his government’s relationship with the public.
I want to serve notice now that these decisions will be taken with the maximum possible transparency. And I want to share all our working, our thinking, my thinking, with you, the British people.
– Boris Johnson, Monday 27th April
In an otherwise infuriating speech, this pledge was welcome. On the previous Friday, the playwright David Hare had struck a chord on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme with an urgent plea for an end to the “dodging and waffling” of ministers. There was, he suggested, a quid pro quo: “in return for lockdown, isolation, commercial disaster and social distancing” the government had to start shooting straight.
They must own up to their mistakes, stop dodging and waffling and start to trust us with the truth.
Otherwise, said Hare, the lock-down could not be expected to hold.
He was bang-on right, and Monday’s pledge suggested that the Johnson government had heard him.
Of course, those who heard the Prime Minister promise a new levelling with the British public might have hoped it would be a new beginning not just for the conversation around our collective response to the coronavirus outbreak, but also for our post-truth politics in general.
How about, for instance, some honesty around the challenges for our trading relationships come the end of the Brexit transition period? Our economy clearly can’t cope with another major shock at the end of this year, and yet the government has held the line that it must, and it will.
Would a newly-transparent Johnson government move quickly now to release the Russia Report, helping to restore confidence in our democratic process? Would a newly caring, sharing Johnson government move away from the reliance on patronising, and deeply misleading slogans of recent years? No deal is better than a bad deal. Get Brexit Done. Oven-ready deal.
Sure, even the most optimistic of us wouldn’t seriously have hoped for such a dramatic sea-change, even from a Prime Minister who’d had a brush with the brink, even from a Prime Minister who suddenly seemed to understand what the NHS was for. Even from a Prime Minister who suddenly understood that immigrants are not spongers but great people who will save your fucking life.
We were never going to get a new, humble, sackcloth-and-ashes Johnson, inviting us into No 10, holding up his homework and asking us to help him with some of the thornier questions.
But there’s one thing we could have had. One thing, which might have restored a bit of faith for us all. Something which might have brought us together a little bit. And from that little bit of togetherness, perhaps next week new shoots of unity could have grown. And the week after that. After all, if there’s one thing that’s abundantly clear, it’s that the virus – while its impact varies alarmingly across class and income groups – has to be tackled together, and with unity of purpose.
That one thing is this. May 1st 2020 could have been the day when the government was straight with us about its Covid-19 testing failures.
We all know the story. In setting itself a random target of 100,000 tests, it built a rod for its own back.
In a world where the government binds itself with few, or at best generic and distant targets, communicates mostly with meaning-free slogans, and ducks accountability by sowing confusion wherever it goes, setting a concrete target with a firm end-date was unusual.
The pattern of the crises of the last few years has been one in which our somewhat befuddled and supine press rarely knows which way to look, and ends up looking where the government tells it to look – over here! Over there! Over here! Before any issue can properly be interrogated, the crisis has taken a new turn, and news cycle has moved on. And the public is none the wiser. It’s a pattern which – if you are a failing, flailing government – you might wish to preserve.
In that smoke-and-mirrors context, Matt Hancock’s crisp, numerical promise of 100,000 tests, with a solid Judgement Day of the last day of April, was a political kamikaze mission.
It looked for a while, too, that Johnson’s government was going to throw him under the bus for it, casting him as a man panicked into the promise by public clamour.
“He’s not had a good crisis,” said one senior Tory. “The Prime Minister will say he has confidence in him but it doesn’t feel like that. Matt was extremely unwise to come up with such a high and round figure and to make a dogmatic commitment rather than an aspiration.”
“He was under pressure at the time. It is pretty clear that he is not going to hit the target.”
A ‘Number 10 insider’ told The Daily Telegraph: “The problem is with this arbitrary target. There is a faint irrationality behind it, just because there was a clamour for mass testing.”
In the end they decided to stick with him. The machinery of government went into overdrive to help him achieve his target. Or if not to achieve it, to be able to argue that he had achieved it.
First they tried to convince us that capacity was the same as testing. They suggested that they “could have done” more tests than they actually achieved, so they were delivering on their ambition.
This didn’t wash. It was widely ridiculed online, with one person on twitter suggesting that her bank account had “capacity” for millions of pounds, even if she only had a couple of hundred quid in there.
They tried blaming health workers for not showing up to get tested at those out-of-town car parks they keep showing us on the TV, because they wanted their Easter weekend at home with the family.
That seemed like a cheap shot too. We all knew tests were desired, and the process of getting them had to be opened up and made easier.
Eligibility had to be broadened. Effective demand had to brought up to meet supply. They tried offering tests online as way of attempting to reduce the gap between theoretical testing “capacity” and actual tests done. Online test booking crashed the systems in minutes.
In the last week we’ve had reports of tests for key workers being done in the field, but with no intention of actually giving the results to the individuals. If true, this appalling treatment of individuals speaks to a mad dash to get tests “done” for the sole purpose of meeting an arbitrary target.
Screenshots began to appear online of emails to Conservative party members exhorting them to apply for tests – more evidence of desperation to massage figures.
Then yesterday came the reports that the 100,000 target had been met – but only by sending out tens of thousands of home test kits. Have those 27,000+ test kits arrived? Will they be properly handled by their recipients? (If you’ve had a Covid-19 swab test, you’ll know how invasive it can be – a LONG cotton bud has to be put deep into the nasopharynx, and it feels like it’s probing your very mind. It’s not clear that individuals will be able to achieve this by themselves.)
Will home tests be sent back in good order? There are reports of packs containing no return label. Will those that are returned be sent back in time, for the test to work, and to be meaningful? If an individual does have Covid-19, and performs the test correctly, and returns it successfully, when might that individual receive a result? Covid-19 is massively infectious just before symptoms present themselves, and in the first three or four days after; speed matters.
For the thousands of posted tests, there seem to be thousands of unanswered questions.
In any case, “tests sent out in the post” are clearly not “tests carried out”. In any ordinary, honest interpretation of the Hancock promise, it has not been met. On the last day of April, 73,000 people were tested. That’s the bottom line.
There is a number in a column marked “Number of Tests” which exceeds a hundred thousand. As we’ve seen, tt is almost meaningless. Really, let’s cut to the chase – it’s a lie.
But it gave Johnson’s Tories what they needed to set about bragging that they had met their target.
The BBC and others duly generated the headlines and disinformation the government has come to rely on.
Johnson’s Tories know it’s a lie, of course. They know that anyone with an enquiring mind knows it’s a lie. Yet still they cannot resist the cheap twisting of truth; the headline for today designed to undermine and undercut the deeper analysis of tomorrow; the cynical, habitual instinct to confuse, gaslight and demoralise the public.
It could have been different. They could have delivered on a much more important promise – the Prime Minister’s one – to engage honestly with the British public.
It could have gone something like this.
Sorry, we didn’t quite reach the target we set ourselves. We’re trying. We’re working not just to achieve it, but to surpass it, because testing on an unprecedented scale will be required for us to move to the next phase.
Once we have the virus under control, we will need huge testing capacity as part of a “track, trace and test” package to keep it contained and avoid any “second wave” of infections.
We could have claimed to have met our target, for example by adding in the numbers for home tests sent out, but we did not. This is because, as the Prime Minister indicated on Monday, we are in this together, and our dealings will now be undertaken ‘with the maximum possible transparency’.
From now on, as Boris Johnson promised, we will share our working, our thinking, and our successes and failures, with you, the British people.
Would that have been so hard? If so, why promise on Monday what you cannot deliver on Friday?
The truth is that the 100,000 tests target, achieved or not, is nothing but a random number plucked out of the air by a cornered politician. It means nothing to criticise him for failing to achieve it, or to compliment him for having achieved it. The long, exhausting battle with the virus goes on regardless.
But that new tone of honesty Johnson promised us on Monday? That could have meant the world – for our handling of the pandemic, and for our politics as a whole. It could have meant a May Day with the beginnings of unity, setting out together for new, summer pastures.
There was a big, bold promise made this week. A remarkable pledge for which it truly would have been worth holding the government to account.
As ever, we focused on the wrong one. It was never the new tests that mattered, it was the already jettisoned, already risible, new order of political transparency.
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Sunlight through a few clouds, a hint of a breeze, warm enough to be out with just a thin jumper over a vest. I skipped downhill towards the town and the seafront, marvelling at the vibrant orangey-pink of a neighbour’s climbing dog rose and the deep purple of a mass of wisteria, pausing to peep through the gate of another’s tiny, perfect garden overlooking the sea, jaunting through the olive grove to the cackle of a pair of jays, and finally stopping to take a photo at the “sweet spot”: the point where the terracotta path curves, revealing the deep blue of the sea ahead, the promontory of Porto Venere and the islands of Palmaria and Tino, all framed by the fronds of the tall palm tree in the garden of the grand villa on the corner. I’m out. I’m out for a walk for the first time in almost 7 weeks.
Italy’s lockdown has been harsh. “Brutto”, as they say here, with a shake of the head and a hunch of the shoulders and a lift of the hands. For two months we have been allowed out only for three things: food shopping, medical needs or essential work. These three options are on a form we must take with us, along with proof of our identity and address, whenever we go out. We must specify the addresses we have come from and are going to, and why. The police may ask to see the form and can challenge us, send us home or fine us. We must only ever go out alone, and the use of masks and gloves has become increasingly required in shops. Solitary, outside exercise has been allowed early in the morning as long as you’re back home by 8am on weekdays or 7am at weekends. Dog walks, within 100 metres of your house, were permitted. Believe me, I have thought more than once of renting Renato, my neighbour’s lovely old pooch. Renato’s owner, Pietro, finished off my sentence for me when I started to suggest it. Apparently I am not the only one!
Lockdown has meant not going out to see family or friends, not popping out for a bike ride or a stroll in the park (parks are closed, playgrounds are closed, the seafront is closed) or to wonder at the beautiful sunsets. Actually not “popping out” at all – because every trip requires thinking about the form, and writing it out, and finding your mask and your gloves, and making sure you have your ID, and then turning back because you have forgotten something vital. Going to the supermarket (even now) means a two hour round trip, because of having to queue for anything up to 45 minutes outside at two meters apart, while the staff only let in a tiny number of people at any one time so that we can keep our distance while shopping. Once there, you must buy at least 10 items to stop people from using a supermarket trip as an excuse to go out several times a day. The only shops that have been allowed to open are supermarkets, butchers, greengrocers, pharmacies and newsagents.
Italy is not like the UK in many ways, but the political structure is particularly different. The Governor of our province of Liguria is accountable for what happens here, can decide on how best to implement national restrictions and in turn, influence the Mayor of our town who may or may not vary his response. As this is a seaside town, the Mayor has been especially concerned about the potential risk arising from any influx of visitors, second homers, locals who are used to mingling on the seafront for the evening passeggiata. So lockdown here has been even stricter than in many other parts of the country.
Now as the Covid curve begins to flatten in Italy, we are entering a new phase. Some of the restrictions are being lifted. But they are still tough. Yes, I can now go for a walk. But I still need my form and my ID and I may be stopped by the police. Wearing a mask outside is compulsory. I must walk on the right. I am not allowed to walk along the seafront between our town and the smaller one down the coast – a favourite stroll. I can’t wander the streets of the old town because I am not a resident there. From next week, people are allowed to visit family (but not friends) as long as everyone wears a mask during the visit. However, there is no travelling at all outside the municipality which means your family had better live close by, otherwise you ain’t seeing them yet. Take-aways will be allowed. Dogs can be taken to be groomed. Very small funerals can be held. Bookshops and dry cleaners will be open. And that’s about it. That’s Phase Two.
Another feature of local accountability within the Italian system is that the daily national tally of the number of people who have died, recovered, been tested, newly infected and so on, is broken down not just by province, but also by public health district within each province. Liguria publishes all the figures daily on its official website and even tweets them. In our own health district, as nationally, the number of people who have died, have been tested as positive and who are at home or in hospital are declining, while the number of tests is increasing. Today’s figures showed there were only 8 people in intensive care in our health district, out of a population of about 250,000. Lockdown has been working and we have all contributed to that. We have kept ourselves, our neighbours, our community as safe as possible. After this set of extreme measures, it makes a difference to know. It matters.
And for now, I can go for a walk. I can amble past the police without worrying they suspect me of sneaking out for exercise and cart me off to the nearest police station. I can smile behind my mask at someone who waits as I pass by. I can smell the flowers, the blossom. I can feel the sea breeze and take photos of the boats and the sails and the sunsets. For now, I don’t have to rent Renato.
by Edana Minghella in Liguria, Italy.