Suppression vs Mitigation, Acceptable Horror, Externalised Costs - problem solving for whom?

"We need to address the societal well-being of our nation, not just the economic well-being: our people are telling us that politics are not delivering and meeting their expectations. This is not woolly, it’s critical.”  Jacinda Ardern

Amrit Lohia tweeted the following:

Giving everyone "access to water and food" requires socialism. Eradicating SARS-CoV-2 also requires a shift to a socialist model where we recognise our responsibility to protect each other. Tagging in @coreluminous who can probably explain this better than I can.

I replied:  I think you have distilled it into its purest form.

"where we recognise our responsibility to protect each other." 

That is the essence of the situation with regards to COVID, Climate Change, pollution, poverty, environmental degradation, Racism, Misogyny etc.

Then I wrote some more.

I would call it a pro-social model rather than ideological Socialism.

https://dwylcorneilius.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-metric-for-governance-uk-election-2017.html

Management of the shared commons implies duty of care to all who share the commons. This demands that decisions on policy and practical implementation are grounded in equity and mutual aid and are based on evidence rather than upon ideological belief or the opinion of any one group.

Externalised Costs

.

https://dwylcorneilius.blogspot.com/2021/08/externalised-costs-much-more-than.html

Costs incurred by producers or consumers any other actors acting within the shared commons, that are not resolved, that are passed on to others who bear the burden are anti-social, profoundly so.

This is where I part with existing ideological Socialism which seeks equitable pay and conditions for all, whilst still allowing externalised costs to be accrued. Externalised costs is  the root of all the problems we face, globally. 

Resolution will be of that issue will be complex, that's well understood. 

That said it is attachments to power and status which make it more complicated than it needs to be.

Thus a reckoning with power and status lies ahead, it cannot be avoided.

Does this reckoning have to descend into a power struggle?

Only if those who hold asymmetric power choose to make it so.

Those who hold positions of power and status could choose to share that power, and they could manage it slowly enough to empower the corrective changes required that would protect us all as we move through this phase.

That choice is real.

To recap:

Elimination of community transmission is possible.

It's really simple. Virus needs to date a new human host, or it dies out. It is a complex operation to support a population to do EoCT.  Professor Gabriel Scally is a highly respected, deeply experienced public health professional and scholar. He is in no doubt whatsoever that elimination of community transmission is the best possible strategy under the current circumstances, where in the UK we are still at less than 20% population infected, and globally much less than that. There is an immense amount of harm to prevent, to avoid and it makes no sense to push the global population into harms way.

What complicates it are matters of power, wealth and status. That much is clear.

1. there's a world of difference between eradication and elimination of community transmission.

https://scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2108/S00021/the-meaning-of-elimination-of-covid-19.htm

2. New Zealand is not in complete isolation from the rest of the world. Tourism is not an essential human activity. Quarantine can manage necessary travel.

3. Proof of concept is 1.8 billion people who were not faced with multiple national level lockdowns, health care and economic harms over extended periods. 

4. Proof of concept is variants from areas that rejected elimination strategy arriving and breaking through quarantine systems.

5. Australia’s official COVID-19 strategy, suppression, doesn’t have an epidemiological definition. 

“Suppression isn’t a known technical term,” says epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre, head of the Biosecurity Program at the Kirby Institute and Professor of Global Biosecurity.

6. “It’s either elimination or disease control.”

‘Disease control’ means reducing the number of cases to a locally acceptable level, but community transmission may still occur. 

7. In England that successful disease control is defined by Johnson as being 1000 deaths by Covid19 per week. No mention of the acceptable number of cases of chronic disease, Long Covid.

https://inews.co.uk/news/boris-johnson-privately-accepts-up-to-50000-annual-covid-deaths-as-an-acceptable-level-1170069

8. So, if I was one of those 'acceptable deaths' would I agree with Johnson?

If you or your beloved, or your son or daughter was one of those 'acceptable deaths' would you agree with Johnson?

9.  And the other more harsh reality of each death by covid is this:

These are truly awful, horrific deaths. Really, really grim.

https://vox.com/2021/2/20/22280817/covid-19-deaths-us-nursing-home-icu-ventilator

Oxygen depletion, organ failure, death. Terror, despair and horror over the course of ten days or so. One thousand times every week. Thousands of families. Hundreds of ICU teams

Who decides these deaths are acceptable? On what metric?

10. In another context, how many terrorist bombings would be considered an acceptable level?

Is it the case that the 241,000 Afghani deaths of the past 20 years are acceptable to UK citizens, but the 404 combat deaths of troops are not? 

11. Who makes these calls about policy and public health strategy, which have such immense impact the shared commons, and on what basis? 

12. Is there a need now for urgent collective decision making and collective action to prevent further avoidable harm, when we are in a situation that affects us all?

Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

Hit The Road Matt, Sajid!: end Mitigation Strategy, start Elimination Strategy to prevent more harms

Elimination Strategy is proven to prevent the harms that mitigation strategy has demonstrably caused. 

Misfeasance, nonfeasance, and malfeasance are types of failure to discharge public obligations existing by common law, custom, or statute.  Misconduct in Public Office is a criminal offence in England and Wales.

In a global pandemic, the government of every country has a dual duty of care. Firstly, they must work with the population to stop the spread of the pathogen in order to protect their health and their economies and secondly they must ensure they do not export the pathogen, which is a duty of care they owe to the global community.

Failures

March 2020 :same media, organisation, different headlines, similar policy of mitigation, 

elimination strategy rejected, with attendant harms not avoided.

This is incontrovertibly true. 

The evidence is there for all to see. On every possible measure, human or systemic, elimination strategy delivers much better outcomes. This is beyond all doubt true.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00978-8/fulltext

Evidence suggests that countries that opt for rapid action to eliminate SARS-CoV-2—with the strong support of their inhabitants—also better protect their populations health, their economies and minimise restrictions on civil liberties compared with those that strive for mitigation.

This chart shows the basics

FigureCOVID-19 deaths, GDP growth, and strictness of lockdown measures for OECD countries choosing SARS-CoV-2 elimination versus mitigation

The Lancet report lays out the evidence, fully referenced. Read it. Knowledge is better than belief.

"Among OECD countries, liberties were most severely impacted in those that chose mitigation, whereas swift lockdown measures—in line with elimination—were less strict and of shorter duration (figure). Importantly, elimination has been framed as a civic solidarity approach that will restore civil liberties the soonest; this focus on common purpose is frequently neglected in the political debate.

Evidence suggests that countries that opt for rapid action to eliminate SARS-CoV-2—with the strong support of their inhabitants—also better protect their health and their economies and minimise restrictions on civil liberties compared with those that strive for mitigation"

That this was predicted in January, February and March 2020 is also quite clearly true.

It's not rocket science, it is epidemiology and public health best practice.

It was why Australian State Governments chose elimination strategy and eventually beat down the Australian Federal Government's Mitigation policy choice. They acted wisely in opposing the Morrison/Murdoch policy line.

It was what China had done, and was what Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South and North Korea had all chosen. Protect the population to protect the economy.

Stopping the Spread is Spreading the Love

Stop the spread of the virus within the community - track every case, trace all contacts, test all contacts, quarantine contacts, isolate the infected in prepared treatment facilities designed to prevent exacerbation of symptoms and disease - chase the virus until it can find no new hosts.

Maintain a tightly quarantined border - goods can pass, people must be checked, and quarantine monitored.

All of which was done without any Vaccine.

Slow spread is lethal

So I am writing today, from England, as we observe an exponential growth surge of the Delta Variant, a variant only possible because Governments chose to allow the virus to spread and rejected elimination strategy.  The English Government are gambling with the lives of the population and with the wealth of the economy.

Malfeasance

They have made a bet with very uncertain odds.

Their bet is that the vaccine will reduce harms to an 'acceptable level'.  When just under half of the population is unvaccinated, and of the other half, only half are double dosed, with supplies and delivery systems stretched to their limit, even as a surge of the Delta Variant is under way. That's a very dodgy bet indeed.

The Education Secretary advises that masks are no longer mandatory in schools and the Health Secretary, 'Snogger' Hancock suggests ending all restrictions and leaving it to 'personal responsibility'.

'Acceptable Level' is meaningless when already the UK as seen 150,000 excess fatalities, of which 127,000 are directly attributable to COVID19 - a truly frightening and horrific way to die - and in addition we are seeing 2 million cases of Long COVID, with 350,000 cases of severe disease that appears to be chronic.

How much more of this are we to endure? How is any of this 'acceptable'?

Then there's the financial losses incurred by millions of people, entirely driven by Government policy decisions, in a wide range of industries. Is all of that 'acceptable' now?

Who loses, who wins in this casino of health and wealth?

Crony Capitalism is obviously one winner.

The Good Law Project is exposing in court what the Government has kept under wraps, the crony capitalism that is gouging profits from an imperiled population, whilst the pro-Government media is under reporting what should be known in every household in the land. The Government are borrowing on your good name, and their mates are shunting a significant portion of that cash off-shore via private contractors and sub contractors.

Pro Government News Media organisations owned by billionaires are losing money in order to maintain this degree of government support - and none of the leading editorials of any newspaper are calling for elimination strategy, which is what would prevent the harms we see daily.

During the past 16 months the English Billionaire class have seen their wealth increase by more than 1/3rd in 2020-21.  The Millionaire Club has seen an expansion too. They can afford to lose money supporting the current English Government because they are raking it in, in spite of the harms to the general population.

Who loses?

There are more children 'qualifying' for Free School Meals. Food bank dependency has grown, food banks in the UK saw a 47% increase in need during the crisis. Unemployment has surged even as the number of millionaires has grown.. 

Social Support systems are at breaking point after a decade of deliberate cut backs, carried out under the guise of a lie, Austerity, an act of Sado-Monetarism, by a government that is unrepentant and a continuing source of harm. 

Women bear the brunt of all this, as carers and frontline staff, as essential key workers and as low income workers who cannot survive on Statuary Sick Pay, and thus cannot afford to isolate if they suspect they are ill, possibly with covid19. There is no immediate economic or moral or emotional support for low income people who really ought to be isolating. 

The English government portrays such support as doling out freebees to individuals, rather than as part of a series of actions that protect the whole community. Gaslighting the population, trying to make people feel ashamed of asking for support.

Is snogging an criminal offence?

Matt Hancock is filmed in a sexual embrace with his lover, within his offices and some people call for his resignation. Hancock makes an apology, in writing, but does not present himself in public. Johnson accepts the apology, and says the matter is closed.

I disagree.

I say - arrest Matt Hancock, drag him from his office, bring him to a police station, charge him with Gross Malfeasance or Misconduct in Public Office and Corporate Manslaughter, and place him on remand, in Belmarsh Prison.

Hit The Road Matt

(Hit the road, Matt and don't you come back no more

no more, no more, no more)

(Hit the road, Matt and don't you come back no more)

Woah, Matt, oh Matt, don't treat us so mean

You're the meanest health minister that we've ever seen

because you tel us only  lies

virus spread far and wide

chorus

Woah Matt, listen, Matt, don't ya treat us this-a way

we'll be in Court for sure some day

We're really angry with you 'cause it's understood

You ain't got no morals, you just ain't no good

chorus

Woah Matt, Kissing, Matt, it's not a crime to snog you say

Your crony contracts are unlawful.  the Courts did say

We're really angry with you 'cause it's understood

You ain't got no morals, you just ain't no good

And because you always lied

a hundred thousand died

Who ever is chosen to take over the role of Health Secretary MUST end this harmful folly of 'mitigation' and 'living with the virus' which is an approach that rushes towards harm rather than avoiding harm. I do not hold much hope that this will happen. 

The current Conservative and Unionist Party and indeed, Keirless Starmer's front bench opposition show no signs of ever admitting the evidence that elimination strategy works, is proven and is, in the UK, eminently doable. Undoubtedly more people will die horrific deaths, long COVID will increase as the virus spreads. 

We are doomed to 'live with this Government', and must resort to doing our best as individuals to avoid being harmed and to avoid causing harm. 

Stopping the spread is spreading the love.

Julian Assange.

I know, I am howling at the moon again. Screaming into the wind. But I cannot stay silent, I cannot and will not recede into mute impotent fury. I much prefer loud impotent fury. Even if my audience is small. Even if I am screaming to myself.

Here's an idea - let's do a prisoner swapsie.  Release Julian Assange.

And make room in Belmarsh for Johnson, the entire Cabinet, the culpable Downing Street Cabinet Office advisory teams, the editors of News Media that rejected Elimination Strategy, UsForThem Lobbyists and many others.

Instruct Parliament to form a National Unity Government tasked with implementing elimination strategy and when we finally do eliminate community transmission within the British Isles, let us sit back and enjoy the public trials, and hug one another, freely.

#ArrestMattHancock #FreeJulianAssange Arrest Hancock, set Julian Assange free. A crazy idea! Totally unrealsitic. Fantasy la la land. Nonetheless Thiis speaks to the venality of the English Ruling Establishment : Blairs Freedom, Assange's persecution, Hancock's pension and resignation fee and the rejection of elimination strategy as the way to manage this epidemic are inextricably linked to Starmer's current position and his support for the English Government, and for Israeli State Military violence, among other things.

To be honest, I wouldn't want Keirlessness Starmer defending me in court. Would you?

Update: The new Health Secretary!

The new Health Secretary is Ayn Rand fan, Sajid Javid, former investment banker, CDO peddler, '08 Crasher, serial short term Cabinet Minister and general right wing neo-Liberal Free Market opportunist.

Richard Murphy outlines the kind of policy position Mr. Javid will bring to the Health portfolio.

https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2021/06/28/sajid-javid-helped-bring-this-country-to-its-knees-once-no-doubt-he-will-be-seeking-to-do-so-again/

"Sajid Javid is now the Health Secretary,and it has to be noted that  his prior experience was in trading the financial instruments that crashed the world economy in 2008.

And he was not a minor player. He was a major player at a major bank, worthy of having press releases issued about his career progression. In 2008 he helped bring down the world economy: no one else but bankers did that. Deutsche in London was right in the middle of that.

Now this Ayn Rand reading banker is making the decisions on whether or not the economy will reopen. And he says his I aim is to 'get back to normal'.

What? The normal where people whose only experience is in making a deal on a computer screen, the consequences of which they are utterly indifferent to, is what is defined as normal?"

Should Sajid Javid Rand really be appointed as Health Secretary?

https://gezwinstanley.wordpress.com/tag/sajid-javid/ apt blog article on Mr. Javid and his attraction to Ayn Rand, a 'thinker' whose 'philosophy' amounts to a rabid justification for absolute selfishness, cited by those who think nothing of using Wealth as a weapon against everything they dislike, despise and fear - for the neo-liberal billionaire freedom is the right to do what you will with your own property, especially as owners of the land and  rulers of the people that inhabit it. A conquerors creed.

"So, after Matt Hancock’s humiliating resignation (which preserves his pension and severance pay), our Tory Government has just appointed Sajid Javid as the new Health Secretary?

What we are NOT being told, of course, is that Mr Javid is ideologically committed to the total destruction of the NHS.

"Mr Javid is a dedicated follower of the US “thinker” Ayn Rand (apparently he makes a point of re-reading a key scene from Ayn Rand’s novel “The Fountainhead” twice a year). Ayn Rand’s system of thought (which styles itself as “Objectivism”) is an extreme form of right wing libertarianism in which selfishness is regarded as the ultimate virtue from which the whole of morality is derived

Rand’s ideas are revered by many tax and regulation avoiding, and privatisation loving, billionaires, who then fund think tanks and political parties aiming to quietly promote such ideas the world over.

So now we now have a Health Secretary who is an adherent of this philosophy, who therefore thinks that anyone who needs healthcare, but can’t afford to pay for it, is a “looter”, part of Atlas’s burden, who should perish. Who really opposes socialised healthcare as an evil.

And our Government have made this appointment while we are still fighting a pandemic, and when yet another major reorganisation of the NHS is looming. How late, or non-existent, would our lockdowns have been with Mr Javid in charge? Will Big Business, via the new Integrated Care System boards, essentially now take over the NHS, with all that could imply for moving to a more “American” model?

The Tories are clearly intent on destroying the NHS, and lying while they do it. For most of us and our loved ones, at least those of us who have so far survived Tory austerity and the pandemic, this is literally an existential crisis"

One Mr. Javid's awful attempts at governance was ordering research into the ethnicity of child grooming gangs,as an appeal to right wing Daily Mail voters.rather than researching why grooming gangs exist in every city and in many towns, and remain largely un-challenged.

As Home Secretary Mr. Javid ordered research into why men convicted of grooming-gang sex crimes are disproportionately of Pakistani origin. Mr. Javid said at the time  that establishing the “particular characteristics” of the perpetrators was “critical to our understanding” of offending in places including Rotherham, Telford and Newcastle. He made the commitment in a letter to Sarah Champion, the Labour MP who was strongly criticised for stating that the country “has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls”.

As it turned out, research proved that the majority of such activity in England is perpetrated by white British and White European gangs.

His  Randian opportunism outweighed his concern for the welfare of the most vulnerable among our children and our youth.We can expect more from where that came from in the coming months and years, if he remains in post that long. The prospect is awful.

Hit the road, Sajid.

He is totally the wrong person in the wrong government to manage our health care systems in the midst of this epidemic/pandemic, if we wanted it to be managed well.

They all are.That much is obvious.

Hit the road, predaTory Party, it is understood, you ain't got no morals and you ain't no good, you are amoral, callous, avaricious, power mad bullies and cowards.- why do we have to live with you?

Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."