The Psychology of a culture is revealed and perpetuated in how they relate to and treat their children and in how they relate to and treat the most vulnerable people within their society. Heal that and we can heal everything.
The central claim is that the science advice was focused on influenza. Based on documents released (belatedly) from SAGE meetings. No copy of the documents is produced, no date of the documents is provided, nothing to substantiate the release as genuine or the writers interpretation .as accurate.
The documents may well be genuine.
They might be a late addition.
Do you trust the UK Government?
Who does?
The article tries to portray the decision making process of the UK Government as a similar mistake to one made by pilots who were fixated on one minor issue, who missed a critical issue, leading to the fatal crash of their aeroplane. The UK Science teams were focused on Influenza and did not notice COVID19.
Oh dear!
Blame the Scientists, the Public Health officials. Johnson get out of jail card is played.
"The terminology offers a first hint. The modelling group is called the “scientific pandemic influenza group on modelling”. The key planning document that informed government policy for a decade is called the UK Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy. The review of evidence on whether to shut educational facilities is called the Impact of School Closures on an Influenza Pandemic. A paper on whether to limit public events is called Impact of Mass Gatherings on an Influenza Pandemic."
I don't buy it.
This article is blaming the Scientists. The article does not mention the consistent lies, the deliberate policy decisions that repeatedly allowed spread of the infection, the desire to 'make a profit' or the appalling May 10th speech, or the odious briefing of Gavin Williamson the day before the get out of jail free care article was published. Passive aggressive management tactics, manipulative grooming, emotional blackmail. These are the actions of devious and deceitful people, not the errors of well meaning people.
The article is nothing less than a putrid attempt to give the Government a get out of jail card for the Johnson/Cummings cabal and their supine political appointees posing as Medical Officers and Scientific Advisers.
It does not say what date these minutes are taken from.
They mention March. They mention early documents. No useful information.
On February 3rd, Boris Johnson mentioned Corona Virus in a speech about Brexit in Greenwich.
By February 3rd the whole world KNEW that COVID19 was nothing like an influenza. Wuhan had been in lock-down for three weeks, as had Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore.
"And in that context, we are starting to hear some bizarre autarkic rhetoric, when barriers are going up, and when there is a risk that new diseases such as coronavirus will trigger a panic and a desire for market segregation that go beyond what is medically rational to the point of doing real and unnecessary economic damage, then at that moment humanity needs some government somewhere that is willing at least to make the case powerfully for freedom of exchange, some country ready to take off its Clark Kent spectacles and leap into the phone booth and emerge with its cloak flowing as the supercharged champion, of the right of the populations of the earth to buy and sell freely among each other. And here in Greenwich in the first week of February 2020, I can tell you in all humility that the UK is ready for that role. We are ready for the great multi-dimensional game of chess in which we engage in more than one negotiation at once and we are limbering up to use nerves and muscles and instincts that this country has not had to use for half a century."
Protect the hoard, let the herd take it on the chin.
Clear as day.
That was and remains the policy of the UK Government. A policy that has led to c.50,000 excess deaths, and is heading for many more than that. Get back to work! Go to school! Be Alert!
"The grooming (gaslighting) of human vulnerability is one of most vile things any human being can do to another."
Freedom of Speech, abused.
Gavin Williamson's speech on Saturday 16 May, his Corona Virus Education briefing from 10 Downing Street, was an abuse of the rights of Freedom of Speech. It was a deeply manipulative speech. I want to put it into context in this blog piece.
Let me first lay out a necessary qualification about Freedom of Speech in the Public Domain.
Free Speech
Free Speech is a Responsibility - it is neither an absolute Right or a Privilege.
The Responsibility is to speak honestly, to be evidence based, to be as good a listener as a speaker and to acknowledge what is verified, reliable and true as such, and to also acknowledge beliefs as made up, as guess-work at the very best.
Freedom of Speech is not a right to promote beliefs over evidence in matters concerning the shared commons.
Freedom of Speech is not a right to groom, manipulate or exploit others through use of language and various logical fallacies...
Freedom of Speech abused.
The Freedom Movement protesters in Hyde Park and elsewhere were a 'welcome' media distraction from Gavin Williamson's 'briefing' against teachers, parents, children and health and safety common sense. Their case was a mistaken interpretation of the meaning of Freedom of Speech and both they and the Secretary for Education denied the social responsibility inherent in the right to free speech. The distraction was welcome from the point of view of the Government. A minor incident elevated to a mass media 'news' story.
A few 5G obsessed anti-vaxxers, freedom campaigners and assorted conTheory spreaders gathered in Hyde Park, near speakers corner, an historical location for Free Speech in Public, to spout nonsense in public, and to bully , manipulate and groom others to their beleif system and at the same time they chose to deliberately breach social distancing guidelines and regulations whichare necessary to stop the spread of the virus.
The Freedom Movement UK protesters were speaking futile nonsense to power. And asking to be arrested, as a piece of political street theatre. They were in fact fufilling Johnsons policy objective - more spread towards mythical Herd Immunity.
A few of the 200 or so 'activists' were arrested for potentially spreading an infectious disease, after receiving two verbal warnings to disperse under the Corona Virus regulations. The police action was rough, because the protesters resisted and that made for great video evidence of 'state suppression'.
The protesters will claim that their rights to Free Speech were being trampled upon. They were not arrested for anything they said. No surpirse there - reality is hardly their logical foundation.
They are as narcissistic as those they claim to oppose. Fodder for the narrative that the lock down is an injustice.
Lock down injustice.
Which it is, yet not in the way these protesters claim. Reality is much more detailed than their futile and ill-informed caricature allows.
The injustice inherent in lock down as it is being played out in the UK is that it is not being deployed to stop the spread of infection, to lead towards eradicating the viral spread within the UK population in order to protect the significant population of vulnerable people. It is being deployed to guarantee a slow spread of the infection, which does not protect the vulnerable.
That is utterly repugnant, and it is a political and economic choice of policy that undermines the health and safety of at the 11.5 million UK citizens with chronic disease conditions, and in particular the elderly in care homes and those with multiple conditions.
Education and Work.
Teachers Unions have been speaking truth to power since March, and continuing through April, on into May and continuing this week, by asking direct and pertinent questions about health and safety of returning to school in the midst of an uncontrolled epidemic.
Whilst the lock down has slowed the community transmission rate in London, elsewhere it is rising.
The infection spread is still out of control.
Under control means we know where the virus has been, we know where it is and we have suppressed transmission to the degree that there have been no new cases of infection for at least two days or more. None of these are in place as I write. The spread of infection is uncontrolled.
The teachers unions are asking the Government to present their scientific and public health evidence that proves that it is safe to return children to school by asking clearly worded questions, presenting the scientific evidence their questions are based on. The Government is failing to respond in kind.
The teachers concerns are laid out in the 5 tests they set for safe re-opening of schools.
They have also issued a substantial document laying out the detail of their questions, a document which is also a useful learning guide for anyone interested in the matter, as it poses the questions, outlines the back ground of their concerns, presents the scientific evidence and study papers that their concerns are based on.
The Government has not responded in kind.
The British Medical Association has come out in full support of the teachers unions. Their concerns are justified, they are medically rational, a phrase Boris Johnson might be familiar with in the negation of that same term, from his speech on February 3rd in Greenwich.
Instead the Government and their advisors are spinning the numbers, they are painting a false picture of the risk of infection emerging within schools. The details are laid out on this blog, Corona Maths.
"Dr Jenny Harries went even further in order to justify the opening of schools on 1stJune by saying “There’s a lot of anxiety I think around this but people need to think through – in an average infant school with 100 children the likelihood of anybody having this disease is very small and diminishing with time.”
Let’s be clear about this.
That statement is absolutely 100% untrue statistically.
The likelihood is not small and there is no evidence that that likelihood will diminish with time. So let’s explore what the implications for schools really are.
The Implications for Schools
She is an epidemiologist who should have a grasp of statistics so I can only assume that she is toeing a political line and that what she has said is deliberate rather than accidental."
The risk in returning children to school is still very, very high. The spread of infection, the incidence of community transmission is not under control,not by any standard measurement, and teachers are being bullied, workers are being bullied whilst many businesses are being stressed by lack of adequate economic support, bad policy decisions an d we are all subjected to misleading public narratives.
Emotional Blackmail and Gaslighting.
The Teachers Unions and the BMA were publicly gas-lighted by Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, in his briefing from 10 Downing Street, Saturday 16th May.
Williamson attempted to groom the general public, the students and the parents into enrolling in an attack on the teachers.
Here is the video of Gavin Williamson's odious speech.
He carried out a classic grooming exercise in full public view.
He intruded into circle of trust, he primed his audience, he then used emotional blackmail to bind them in to his agenda, and then launched a series of snide attacks where he deployed emotional triggers, laid guilt trips aimed at teachers unions and the BMA, to undermine in the public view their evidence based concerns about health and safety of the teachers, the children, their parents and elder relatives. Machiavellian to the core.
On getting children into school as soon as possible.
Here I will examine some of his statements, and indicate the tactics.
"This is particularly important for vulnerable and disadvantaged young people. There are some who would like to delay the wider opening of schools."
*( speaking to the wider electorate, entering into the circle of trust, blatantly lying to do so - schools are already open for vulnerable children - here, and here . and *here *even though many are not turning up where provision has been made for them, presumably because their parents are concerned with the risks of transmission of infection which might be brought back into family homes where vulnerable unwell or elderly adults share homes, a reasonable concern..)
"But there is a consequence to this."
*(Guilt tripping the teachers, frightening the parents, gaslighting the wider public to think teachers are putting selfish concerns ahead of children's well being)
"The longer that schools are closed, the more children miss out. Teachers know this. Teachers know that there are children out there who have not spoken to or played with another child of their own age for the last two months."
*(guilt tripping the teachers in front of workers, talking about the teachers in the third person to the workers)
"They know there are children from difficult or very unhappy homes for whom school is their happiest place in their week. It’s also the safest place for them to be and it’s thanks to their teachers and the support that their teachers give to them that they are safe and happy."
*(those who are keeping these children out of school by blocking a return are harming these children, - emotional black mail)
The poorest children, the most disadvantaged children, the children who do not always have support they need at home, will be the ones who will fall furthest behind if we keep school gates closed.
*(guilt tripping the teachers in front of the public)
"They are the ones who will miss out on the opportunities and chances in life that we want all children to benefit from what teachers and schools deliver for them."
* (the claim is false, and he implies it is the fault of teachers if these children are failed )
So we’re asking some children to come back from the 1 June. And we are asking schools to adopt a number of strict protective measures.
*( he is asking for children of workers to return - and he knows the Government have not answered the Teachers Unions evidence based questions on Health and Safety, and that those questions will not be answered in his briefing).
Context.
So to place this into the fullest context, we must take on board the meaning of the UK Policy of slow spread of the infection, and what it really means, and what motives might lie behind it.
The speech by Johnson last week (May 10th) was about getting workers back to work.
Protect the economy! Be alert! Get back to work!
He used deliberate, tactically vague instructions to set workers up for a fall, either way - if they are too cautious, they will be blamed for hurting the economy, and their employers will have a leverage to dismiss them, or refuse to support them. If they take too much risk, they will be blamed for the adverse outcomes.
In order to really push that back to work agenda, more school children must be 'encouraged' to return to school so that parents are free to go to work. If they did not push for this, then at least half of parents would stay home because we know that many families both parents go to work.
There are 4.526,000 families with both parents at work.
That is a substantial number of workers, just over 9 million.
At present furlough is covering 6.3 million workers.
Even if the Government can get half of the parents back to work, they are looking at saving billions every month, and at the same time they are increasing the potential for more slow spread of the infection, all at the same time.
Why is slow spread so important to this British Government?
What does slow spread really mean and what benefits does it accrue, and to whom?
Why does the UK Government reject the stop the spread, eradicate the virus within the population approach?
It would be utterly foolish to ignore these questions.
Especially when the Education Secretary is prepared to publicly behave in such a profoundly manipulative manner.
I am not personally frightened, as much as I am concerned. I have been very ill, for three weeks in March with lingering sense of infection into mid April. I feel much better now. Nowhere as well as I did before March.
I have gone beyond fear now, I am mostly furious and I also understand anyone who is vulnerable being fearful, not so much of the bug as of the Government and it's reckless behaviour.
,
The media are portraying our concern as fear, as timidity, as way to gaslight us, to bully us into submission.
It's really ugly to look at and see.
What is going on here?
Kindest regards
Corneilius
Thank you for reading this blog.
"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."
This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.
Bullies will always seek to exploit emerging vulnerabilities in any group they hold a power disparity over. People's need to work, the employers need to get back into business, people's need for cash to survive - all opportunities to be exploited. Always under the guise of helping people, of course.
It will take 5 or 6 days for the first symptomatic case increase, 10 days to see the start of hospital intake increase, and two weeks for the deaths in hospitals, from a new wave to start to be seen.
The UK Government is gambling with your lives.
Only if you allow them to.
Stay home, tell your boss to think about the legal action you will be forced to take if he or she demands you return, or offers to fire you if you do not.
Do not send your children to school, do not demand more teachers place themselves at risk, furlough is not an easy money free ride, it is a protective measure.
Do not be bullied.
There is a local epidemic, here in the UK. We are called upon to be alert. Then let us be alert. Let us pay close attention to the implications, the mask threats, the veiled insinuations.
I will be recording the music and publishing it over the next few days.
BE ALERT, BE AWARE, BE ALERT, THERE ARE BULLIES EVERYWHERE
PRESIDENT TRUMP AND PM JOHNSON, DAVID ICKE AND ALEX JONES,
TRIGGERING EMOTIONS, TO SELL THEIR VAPID SHOWS.
BORIS GIVES INSTRUCTIONS, THEY ARE DELIBERATELY VAGUE
GET BACK TO WORK EVERY ONE, WHILE YOU TRY TO AVOID THE PLAGUE
BE ALERT, BE AWARE, BE ALERT, THERE ARE BULLIES EVERYWHERE
YOU CAN MEET JUST ONE PARENT, AT A DISTANCE OF SIX FEET
KIDS IN SCHOOL SO YOU CAN WORK, THEY CAN WALK ALONG THE STREETS
THE TEACHERS ARE VERY WORRIED, THERE'S NO PLACE FOR COMMON SENSE
THE ATMOSPHERE IN CLASS ROOMS, WILL BE EDGY AND SOMEWHAT TENSE
BE ALERT, BE AWARE, BE ALERT, THERE ARE BULLIES EVERYWHERE
WHO WILL BE INFECTED, AND WHEN WILL WE KNOW,
WHAT IF A SECOND WAVE ROLLS ON, WITH DEATH TO STOP THE SHOW.
BORIS SAYS YOU MUST CHOOSE, YOU MUST ACT WITH COMMON SENSE
HE'S SPEAKING DOWN TO EVERYONE, WITH MANIPULATIVE INTENT.
BE ALERT, BE AWARE, BE ALERT, THERE ARE BULLIES EVERYWHERE
CLASSIC PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE, BAD MANAGEMENT RUNNING FREE
HE'S CONFUSING THE WORKERS, THE SET UP IS THERE TO SEE
THEY WILL BE WRONG, FOR WHAT EVER THEY DO CHOOSE,
THE SET UP IS HEADS HE WINS, TAILS THE WORKERS LOSE.
BE ALERT, BE AWARE, BE ALERT, THERE ARE BULLIES EVERYWHERE
NOW THE BEST THING IS TO STAY SAFE, AND WE MUST STOP THE SPREAD
AVOID EXPOSURE IN OUR COMMUNITY TO THE VIRAL DREAD
PUSH BACK AT EVERY MOMENT AGAINST THE BULLIES AND THEIR LIES
STAY SAFE FROM CORONA VIRUS, LET NO MORE VULNERABLE PEOPLE DIE.
We are living within a bully hierarchy culture. A culture based around artificial power disparities that are used to abuse people, with minimal regulation of the harms caused. It is not inevitable, and it is not The Human Condition.
It is obviously unhealthy.
It doesn't have to be this way. It is this way, yes, that is glaringly obvious and likewise it is obvious that doing anything about it to heal or correct that situation is going to be difficult, we know this. Difficulty is not necessarily a barrier to taking action. It's no secret that those who hold power and deploy power disparities in their favour are unwilling to relinquish those advantages.
Nonetheless, our bodies and our psyches are biologically evolved for egalitarian behaviour and we know that hierarchy of power behaviour is biologically unhealthy. That suggests to me at least that our biology is a potential leverage point in articulating the potential to alter the culture.
Most of human distress originates in the cultural dynamic of power disparity and hierarchy, rather then in the human psyche. The cultural obsession with enforcing and maintaining socio-economic status is a highly stressful and disease generating behavioural dynamic.
Established practice of Psychology, Psychiatry, Religion and New Age magical thinking are all deliberate mis-directions. The person is not the problem.
Yes, it is true that some people are dangerous to others. Dealing with the dangerous people is a health and safety issue for the community, where robust prevention of harm is the core dynamic, and punishment is rejected as irrationally judgemental and ineffective. The Culture is the problem.
In a culture of power abuse, it is obvious that it will generate people who are dangerous to others.
Change and heal the culture, reduce the incidence of emergent psychopathy - again, an obvious approach.
Deal with it.
We all need to deal with this.
The issue here is that we can never fix a social system that is a bully system.
It is by definition beyond repair. The bullying must cease.
Power Hierarchies with artificial power disparities are pathological systems built by bullies.
They cannot be repaired. The power disparity must be disabled, dismantled.
This is very difficult for those people who have been habituated to power disparity to appraise.
The psyche habituated to power disparity thinks that this is the Human Condition.
It is not.
It is a culture, nothing more than that.
The body and psyche is biologically evolved for the egalitarian behavioural dynamic as it's healthy normal state within the environment. We are social organisms. Our sensitivity is all about connection and co-operation, empathy and creativity, loving nurturant relationships with ourselves, our communities and our environment
If the body and psyche is subjected to chronic bullying, it will become distorted, and disease will emerge more frequently than it would otherwise do,
Bullying emerges from unresolved trauma, as a coping mechanism. It has become institutionalised over time.
Kindest regards Corneilius "Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe" Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find,and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is easy.
"The grooming (gaslighting) of human vulnerability is one of most vile things any human being can do to another."
BE ALERT!
It will take 2 to 6 weeks for the first clear signs of a surge in infections to become apparent..
The UK Government is gambling with your lives.
Only if you allow them to.
Stay home, tell your boss to think about the legal action you will be forced to take if he or she demands you return, or offers to fire you if you do not.
Do not send your children to school, do not demand more teachers place themselves at risk, furlough is not an easy money free ride, it is a protective measure.
Do not be bullied.
There is a local epidemic, here in the UK. We are called upon to be alert. Then let us be alert. Let us pay close attention to the implications, the masked threats, the veiled insinuations.
The virus is real. The infection is not a hoax. Viruses are not bullies. Hoaxers are bullies. Some bullies will be attempting to exploit the situations created by this viral infection and the disease it causes. Bullying can be described as using any form of power disparity to manipulate or coerce others to meet the needs of the entity with the greater power.
David Icke is a bully. Alex Jones is a bully. Both are exploiting people's fears and insecurities, their rage and hatreds and emotional reactions to sell books, to sell product, to market a brand, to build a cult following. That is a form of bullying, it is psychological bullying. Donald Trump is a bully. Trumplestiltskin - the public persona is that of The Bully's Bully. The Bully for all Seasons. I will stamp my feet if I do not get my own way!
They are not alone in this. Brexit was a similar dynamic, with Boris Johnson at the very core of that behavioural dynamic, which I have previously described as political grooming. Nigel Farage stating that in his opinion street violence would be understandable if people did not get their own way. Straight bananas.
Hoax? What hoax? SARSCOV2 is a genuine, naturally evolved virus (if you take in the impact of harvesting wild animals for meat, and stocking them, live, in a meat market where stress and stock conditions can mean a virus can be passed from one creature to another in ways that would not normally occur, but can, and did, and is then transferred to a human by contact, where it finds access to cells and replicates and is then transmitted to another human being). COVID19 is the disease caused when the virus enters a human host and uses the hosts cells to replicate, so that it can then be coughed or breathed out in tiny droplets of moist breath, to infect a new human host.
The process of using the hosts cells to make millions of copies of itself destroys those cells, and that is what causes the various disease breakdowns that can cause fatality. Some people's immune systems cannot cope with that, often because they are already suffering a chronic disease. Some people's immune system fails, even though they appear to be healthy. It's a risk for everyone, albeit greater for those who are already ill. We have no vaccine, and none on any reasonable time horizon.
If your lung cells are destroyed, you cannot breathe in oxygen, or breathe out carbon dioxide, and that causes lots of problems for most of your bodies organs. There's more to it than that. That is not the point of this short piece. Infectious diseases can cause terrible damage especially when we have no natural immunity and no vaccine and not curative treatment.
There is a pandemic (which is concurrent epidemics happening at the same time in different countries). This is now a global issue. 7 billion and more are involved in this. We are all in this together. It is in the air we breathe. Breathe in, breath out, spread it all about. There is no vaccine. There is no vaccine in sight. I repeat myself. The promise of a vaccine is an empty promise. And in the next paragraph I will outline one reason why some people are floating it as a strategy with imminent potential right now. It is a delaying tactic. I think Bill Gates naivety is being exploited. I don't think he is evil. Nonetheless, there are those whose intentions are evil; predatory intent among humans is evil. We all know about predatory lending practices. Some people are clearly attempting to exploit the situation of this pandemic.
A slow spread policy avoids taking the kinds of action what would demand a Government supports a population through the process of stopping the spread, suppressing the virus and eradicating it from any given population.
For some ideologues funding the incomes of workers, (as opposed to bailing out hedge funds and investment bankers), is considered an evil greater than the virus's impact on vulnerable people. The people might become addicted to the free money. I have written on this blog quite recently about the historical resonance of British political masters and their fear, their disdain, their hatred for helping the poor, the vulnerable. The UN has chastised the UK Government for it's inhumane mistreatment of disabled people seeking states support to live in dignity.
Priti Patel, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Sir Charles Trevelyan are quoted in my previous piece on the historical behaviour pattern I have observed resonating through this epidemic. Some predatory Governments, Hedge Funds and others such as Rees-Mogg will attempt to exploit the local and global epidemics - buy low, sell high! How can we make a 'killing'? Can we use this to acquire more power? What economic gains can we make from this crisis?
The UN calls for a global cease fire, the USA denies the motion because the WHO exists, because China exists and because both have done, and are doing, immense work to stop the spread, suppress the virus, eradicate it from populations and this shows up the US Federal Governments bad policy.
The UK is in lock step with this move by the USA, Both regularly abuse the Veto rights granted by their presence on the UN Security Council. Yes, the council of those who hold the biggest weapons of mass destruction systems, their versions of political protection equipment. Equipment that is a threat, rather than a protection. Bullies. History. I digress.
Let's return to the lead-up to the present moment, in the UK, by way of the speech Boris Johnson delivered even as the first cases of COVID19 were confirmed in the UK, and health officials were assuring us that the UK was among the best prepared in the world. This is the official transcript from Boris Johnson's speech on February 3rd. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-in-greenwich-3-february-2020 "And in that context, we are starting to hear some bizarre autarkic rhetoric, when barriers are going up, and when there is a risk that new diseases such as coronavirus will trigger a panic and a desire for market segregation that go beyond what is medically rational to the point of doing real and unnecessary economic damage, then at that moment humanity needs some government somewhere that is willing at least to make the case powerfully for freedom of exchange, some country ready to take off its Clark Kent spectacles and leap into the phone booth and emerge with its cloak flowing as the supercharged champion, of the right of the populations of the earth to buy and sell freely among each other. And here in Greenwich in the first week of February 2020, I can tell you in all humility that the UK is ready for that role. We are ready for the great multi-dimensional game of chess in which we engage in more than one negotiation at once and we are limbering up to use nerves and muscles and instincts that this country has not had to use for half a century." That clears everything up then. There we have it. Those who seek to protect their populations are panicking, cowardly, spineless and weak, The UK Government is strong, caped up and ready to make vast profits in this situation.
Treating the people as children.
Boris Johnson's May Bank Holiday speech was deliberately vague, and because the instructions are vague he is hanging workers out to dry.
Classic passive aggressive management tactics are to issue deliberately vague instruction sets that contain conflicts; in response, when workers exercise too much caution, they are blamed for any failures to meet objectives, and when they are not cautious enough, they are held responsible for any adverse outcomes.
His speech calls for factories and other workplace settings to restart working in the midst of a lock down, at a time when statistics indicate a plateau, rather than a downturn.
Johnson makes a call to maintain social distancing even though we know that it is practically impossible in many work and travel situations to maintain that - the Ro number is still rather vaguely estimated, and in all likelihood it is still too high. We know using public transport is a super spreader. We know that thousands of new cases are confirmed at hospitals every day, and that hundreds are still dying in hospitals, at home and in care homes and that a third of UK 15,570 care homes are hosting outbreaks of infection. His instructions and directions amount to deliberate confusion.
"The main sources for infection are home, workplace, public transport, social gatherings, and restaurants. This accounts for 90% of all transmission events. In contrast, outbreaks spread from shopping appear to be responsible for a small percentage of traced infections" source
Who will take up the workers part when they are ordered back to work, and out of concern for others and common sense they refuse? Will they then be fired? What of their rights under Section 44? What legal aid access will the have? Is this how furlough is to be reduced? The addicts pushed out to face cold turkey. They can exercise all day long, to work through it?
Bullies give vague directions in order to set the victimised up for future failure and censure. This is a known behavioural and tactical dynamic associated with passive aggressive management.
News Media carefully float in comments about how furloughed workers are taking a freebie, sitting back and enjoying the free cash, Callers into talk shows repeat these claims, and acclaim their own desire to get back to work! Underneath is the unspoken allegation of mass malingering, disincentivised work shy slackers threatening the UK Economy.
Treating the people as adults. Other Governments and organisations are responding in ways that attempt, as best they can, to take care of the people. They are attempting to stop the spread, to suppress the virus until it is eradicated from the population to whom they owe fealty and of for whom they hold a duty of care. They are supporting their people in order to have a people, to be an economy.
'Unless we fix the biology, there will be no economy.' Dr. Erin Bromage. Understanding the risks matters. Opinion and belief may well be lethal.
New Zealand is one example of a State choosing to take an evidenced position in order to protect the most vulnerable people within their population, which as it happens will also be the most protective of their economy.
Be like Jacinda, Stop the Spread, Spread the Love.
I wrote a song about Jacinda vs Boris and Donald. No fridges or golf games for her. Just the daily work of suppressing transmission, eradicating the virus. Day by day. This chart in the link below outlines the impacts of the different policy approaches in different countries, in terms of infections or progress of their local epidemic, as a result of their policy approaches. Take a look. It's real.
It really is that clear. Bullies Exploit Emerging Vulnerabilities
Another way to frame this is to say that bullies will always attempt to exploit any emerging vulnerability in any family, village, church, organisation, institution or population/state where they hold degrees of power over others. I understand that this is a behavioural pattern, one the bully does not have to think about engaging, that it is automatic. See opportunity, grasp it! The bully will be behaving in an opportunistic dynamic, and will be co-opting any push back by the populations they are afflicting, so there is this push and pull dynamic that is very unsettling - this is then masked by a narrative that gives the illusion of incompetence, and that serves the purpose of throwing the afflicted off the scent, so that the opportunity to exploit the situation remains in the control of the bully.
There is also a benefit to the bully in encouraging a raft of conTheories and even in promoting them - The Chinese Virus! - some people will reject such theories as too outlandish, too crazy to be real or meaningful, and in throwing out the baby with the bathwater, they lose touch with the bullying element. Incompetence is much more comforting an illusion, and it gives the bully more more to act.
A bully can be a person, a group of people, an institution or a Government twisting arms.
Write to your local MP. Write to the media you read.
Protect your children and their teachers.
Make a noise, stay at home, disturb the bullies. Stop the spread, spread the love.
Kindest regards
Corneilius
Thank you for reading this blog.
"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."
This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.
What will it take to arrive at Virus Eradication Day?
on re-reading this there's too many words, my writing feels clumsy, there is too much repetition - I am leaving it that way because well, it bears repeating - the UK Government Policy on Corona Virus is a disastrous policy, and it is causing avoidable harms to vulnerable people.
1. Fit healthy people who have contracted the virus without presenting any symptoms can and do spread the virus in the community.
2. Symptomatic people spread the virus at home.
3. To stop the spread we need supportive shut down, social distancing and we need Government to adapt buildings as fever hospitals to treat symptomatic cases at the earliest stages, rather than more critical care hospitals. We also need contact tracing and testing to chase down all cases of infection and all potential cases of infection, until we know where the virus has been, where it is and there it has not yet appeared.
Creating Fever Hospitals protects existing hospitals, allows us to concentrate skilled ICU facilities where they already exist and where such services can be more readily expanded, with the skills close at hand so that training is easier because of the existing skill base.
4. The vulnerable will suffer the worst consequences. That has to be our shared concern, a collective duty of care.
About 15 million people in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland live with a long-term health condition. Long-term conditions or chronic diseases are conditions for which there is currently no cure, and which are managed with drugs and other treatment, for example: diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, arthritis and hypertension.
5. Then there are the most serious concerns with the situation within the 15, 570 care homes in the UK, where people being cared for have been isolated, by Government order, away from close family. As if the date of this blog one third of care homes have infection outbreaks. We know now that cared for elders are contracting the infection, (through care workers who move between care settings) and this is having fatal consequences, with no measures in place to enable some close family to have access at such a critical time. Awful.
Things to consider, at pace - Possibilities such as testing an entire family group for virus or anti-bodies to ascertain who might be infected or immune within family groups, so that they can be screened for safe entry. The creation of facilities for changing into PPE for visits. The treatment of elders with symptoms at Fever Clinics rather than within care homes where they become spreaders. There's a huge gap in provision to assess the needs and provide support for the welfare of the cared for, and their families.
6. Everyone looking at the situation really ought to be fully conscious of this important characteristic of health within the UK population. Chronic Disease with no cure. Such a large part of the population at extra risk must concern all of us.
5. Among that portion of the population with chronic conditions, those exposed to the viral infection who then develop the disease COVID19 will endure many, far too many, early avoidable, horrible deaths. In large numbers. Am I repeating myself? I am. It rarely gets mentioned in the media reports.
7. There is no vaccine, and none in sight. Bear that in mind at all times. I am repeating myself. Some things need to be repeated.
8. Suppression of Virus and eradication from within a given population is possible.
That is what New Zealand and Vietnam and Ireland have chosen. It will work. Others have taken this path. For very sound economic and epidemiological reasons. They will close their borders, and demand quarantine for all incoming travellers. They will have to - they will have to police their borders assertively as a matter of health and safety for the whole population and their economy.
Here is a chart of how different countries are faring, with different approaches.
Suppression and eradication is a finite process, it does have an end in sight, running as it typically does for 8 - 12 weeks, or a bit longer, when done correctly with full resourcing and effort - once the virus is eradicated from within a given population, maintaining a tight quarantine, with a vigilant detection and suppression internal and active health system protects the population.
9. The economic cost of a suppression of Virus and eradication protocol will always be less that the economic cost of multiple waves of a slow the spread policy.
10. It does mean that external tourism is replaced with internal tourism. That means more money is circulated within that population. That is a benefit.
11. A slow spread policy is inherently uncontrollable - as soon as there is a relaxation, community spread will escalate within a matter of a few days or within a week, and any surge in infection rate will demand another tighter shut down. The costs of a cycle of surge, shutdown, release, surge shutdown, release , surge, shutdown will be vast by comparison.
12. That cyclical pattern will be open ended. There is no vaccine, and none in sight. Nothing to stop the virus other than an assertive suppression and eradication program.
Therefore that pattern will continue until the mythical 'herd immunity' or maximum infection within the population is realised, which is 93% of the population - and that inevitably means infecting the 15 million people in the UK who suffer from chronic diseases with immune compromised status.
13. It is practically impossible to protect that many people - the only way you protect the vulnerable is by protecting the whole population through suppressing the virus transmission until it ceases.
14. If The UK Prime Minister, his advisors, The Cabinet, SAGE, Dominic Cummings and The Behavioural Insights Team had chosen the correct policy for dealing with an infectious pathogen where no vaccine or medical curative existed - suppression of transmission leading to eradication of the active virus within the population, we would be celebrating Virus Eradication Day.
15, We probably need to quarantine the UK Prime Minister, his advisors, The Cabinet, SAGE, Dominic Cummings and The Behavioural Insights Team until we have stopped the spread and eradicated the virus from the UK population.
Virus Eradication Day.
Think about that, what it means.
We are not celebrating today.
VE day is a poignant commemoration rather than a celebration.
I do not blame the virus. I do not blame the Chinese.
I wish to hold this UK Government to account - the avoidable early deaths are largely on their account. The extra damage to the economy is largely on their account.
Read about the 8-12 week suppression protocol in these two articles.
This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.
Stop the Spread Explained - as best as I can manage as a lay person.
My attempt to explain in laymans terms what Stopping the Spread of an infectious disease is all about, when we have no vaccine and no preventative treatment - and yes, healthy fit people are the primary spreaders of the infection because they move about a lot more than chronically ill people do, and they do not present with as much symptoms, so they can spread and not be aware of it.
Wearing masks takes this into account, It is a precautionary measure.
. No blame here, this is just how this SARSCOV2 virus functions.
And people with chronic disease and immune system compromised status are the ones who suffer the worst effects. That's a lot of people - in the UK it is 15 million people, in the USA it is 83 million people.
A family, society or culture is very much defined by how it relates to and treats the most vulnerable within it.
Stop the spread, eliminate the virus from a population, be it a village, a town, a city, a region or a country is a whole raft of measures that are designed to stop the spread of infection when there is no vaccine - that means to get to a point where there is no more active virus in the population within the given zone or territory. It is not a pick n mix list, any country dedicated to eliminating the virus from the population must do all of it. The weakest link must be strengthened to ensure the whole program works most efficiently.
If the virus cannot find new human hosts, it cannot replicate.
Transmission of infection across the community ceases. It stops finding new human hosts.
Then the vulnerable are much better protected.
That is what we ought to be aiming for.
* Important repetitive note : this virus is primarily spread by healthy people who show no symptom and the people it harms the most are those who have chronic disease conditions that compromise their immune response. Other super spreaders are people with symptoms left to self treat at home, in shared living spaces, apartment complexes.
Tourists, Immigrants and Business people travelling on air travel, in cruise ships, on holidays and so on, were the primary vectors of this infectious viral disease.
Across all developed states, the numbers of potentially vulnerable people are significant.
The vulnerable are much larger part of our population than anyone has really acknowledged.
It is worth noting that a small percentage of healthy people with no known or unknown underlying conditions also suffer some of the worst effects. So there is a risk, a gamble so to speak, even if it is very tiny, for healthy people who are exposed to the virus.
But for the vulnerable that risk is much, much greater. It is not a gamble they need imposed upon them.
The task before us, therefore, is to protect the vulnerable population by stopping the virus in it's tracks.
It doesn't necessitate heavy lock down, even though some states have used that.
Usually the reason for heavy shut down is that the virus has been allowed to go further than it ought to have been allowed. Shut down is a response to uncontrolled transmission.
Learning from experience?
UK Government Economic and Political policy was to not panic, in order to 'protect the economy'. In essence to deliberately allow the viral infection to run through the population, which was touted as 'herd immunity' - an a-scientific 'theory'. That was the original position,
While that aspect of the policy was 'dropped' (they stopped mentioning it) , and then denied, (they claimed it was never part of their considerations - an outright lie) the policy of allowing a slow spread has been maintained, and as such it has amounted to a continuation of the same policy - let the people take it on the chin, the healthy will gain immunity, shut the vulnerable away for 12 weeks.
There is no scientific basis for this policy, and certainly no public health basis whatsoever.
Vietnam and New Zealand acted early, and assertively, they acted as soon as any cases emerged.
First known case in UK was confirmed on 31st January, a Chinese couple returning from China to Newcastle, it was announced January 31st. They had been in country for at least a week before that confirmation. The Wuhan epidemic was in full flow, and the UK was still receiving travellers from China, with no health checks at an UK travel entry points.
At that stage Italy was also seeing confirmed cases, and the beginnings of an epidemic, with thousands of ski holiday travellers from UK returning from Italy over February, without adequate checking or quarantine at entry to the UK, there was more infection being imported into the UK.
The time to act assertively is always as soon as the first cases emerge that are confirmed. A point worth repeating. It is also true that assertive action to quell community transmission must be taken at all times. You cannot allow even a slow spread of an infectious disease when you have neither vaccine nor treatment.
That said even if the infection has hit 10, or 15 or 20 percent of a population, when there is no vaccine, the stop the spread or suppression of virus protocols still apply and can still be implemented, and if done well, the policy will work.
The basic suppression of virus infection protocol is this :
A. From the very first cases, Government must give the citizens accurate clear direct information on the virus, how it is transmitted, and be transparent and honest in all communications - the first suggestion is that all mass events, public transport etc be curtailed - these are super spreader events. The UK government failed on that policy as Cheltenham Racing weekend was allowed to happen and a number of Football matches were allowed to go ahead.
People are asked to stay home for 8-12 weeks.
The State must support the citizens income for that period, and it must be fairly distributed, so that they can bear the burden.
All that money will be channelled into the local economies, which eases the stress on the economy at the local level. It is not wasted money. It is an investment in the health and welfare of the people.
B. Social distancing principles are put in place, to slow the spread, to give time for contact tracing etc, to work.
The Government must always be ensuring that people are very well informed as to why - you do not want to order people, you want to give them exact, detailed evidence based information. so that they are engaged in the process.
C. It is obvious that all social care and medical facilities must be fully equipped with PPE and other technical and logistical support for dealing with infectious disease, and have the ability to maintain standard services for the people who need their attention and care.
In China and Vietnam they created isolation treatment hospitals fever hospitals, for treatment of people at the earliest possible stage of symptoms, to keep those ill people who were shedding viral away from the community. This stopped the spread and reduced cases escalating to severe or critical.
This must be enabled in both public and private care and health care settings. This means that they must be set up away from main hospitals. There can be no cutting corners in either environment.
D. The same applies to all institutional residential settings. If prisoners become infected,they must be removed from general population and treated in isolation.
E. We do not need health care 'heroes' - we need health care properly supported, well trained, not over stretched or over worked. UK has failed on all these areas.
(East Asian states had SARS and MERS in recent memory so their populations were alert to the methods having gone through them previously. )
Here is the basic process:
1. A case turns up at hospital or GP surgery, saying "I have fever, cough etc since yesterday." The earlier they report better. This is not a 'flu to be treated at home.
2. That person is tested (not just for SARSVOC2 Virus, but also for Flu and other Fever inducing diseases) and if found positive, with any infectious disease, is placed into treatment away from main hospital services in a Fever Hospital.
Government covers their income for the duration of their stay, average 2 weeks.
The Chinese and others have learned that Fever Hospitals are an effective way to treat cases of a specific virus or pathogen away from existing services so that escalation of cases are reduced, and so that cases can get the earliest and best possible treatment available. This reduces case fatality rates and protects main hospital ICU units. Those main hospital units can be expanded, and staff trained, more readily than entirely new ICU Hospitals can be built and staffed.
3. The person is questioned on his or her movements going back a week (standard incubation time, during which he or she might have been shedding viral particles that could infect other people) to draw a list of potential infectees - the list will be every person that the case spent more than 15 minutes with, in close contact, with attention paid to any public transport or crowded areas.
4. Contact tracing teams go out and visit each of those contacts, to check for symptoms, give advice and inform them of a 2 week quarantine - if they have symptoms, they go to Fever Hospital, with a contact trace carried out of their case. If no symptoms they are advised to stay on quarantine, and get in touch if any symptoms emerge - Government covers their weekly income for the 2 weeks of quarantine.
5. Repeat this for all cases and what you are doing is slowly but surely isolating all active infections, keeping an eye on potential new cases and finding out where people who have had the virus and had no symptoms are. And yes, teams of well trained people, who are good communicators must be assembled for this task to cover a large outbreak. I repeat that if Government is doing it's job, the communications of what is needed will be clear to all citizens, and they will have confidence in the teams of contact tracers, and will engage.
6. This is essential on closing down on the active virus. Chase every case, all contacts until no new cases emerge.
It is labour intensive, and smart phone tech can help make it a bit easier, but it cannot replace the human contact point - for example if an outbreak of cases occurs in your town, or neighbourhood, everyone is notified, by text or map, and people go into extra tight shut down, with hyper awareness of what to do if they get symptoms, vulnerable people get isolation treatment to protect them from being infected, people can provide help in shopping etc..
7. This helps being more precise in action, it can work without a major shut down if people wear masks, follow the protocols and are well disciplined - in the UK people are well disciplined, but the media have hyped the few who were not..
Contact tracing and mass testing makes the virus visible.
That's the point. If we know where it is, then we can close it down
.
Obviously quarantine is essential at the borders of any territory, for all incoming travel, to maintain a virus free zone.
At their own expense, if foreign travellers or business, and if nationals returning, then the state funds it - use hotels close to entry points. This must be mandatory as the risk in not doing it is to great.
It is a process that has been tried and tested, it was developed during 1917-18 Flu Pandemic (even though they had no testing, or phones they applied the other human labour aspects and it worked well in limiting spread where it wass applied) and then refined during SARS in 2002-3, and MERS in 2012, Ebola in 2013 -16.
It is an essential process for when an infectious pathogen is active and there is no vaccine or preventative treatment, and it has lethal outcomes for a significant part of a population.
In the case of this virus, it is spread rapidly by health fit people who show no obvious signs and for this reason shut downs are designed to slow the spread - and then you need the protocol above to STOP the spread. If you shut down, and do not follow the other protocols, there will be a drop off of infection rate, and as soon as you open up again, it will take off.
If we do not stop the spread, and eradicate the virus within a population it will continue to be passed around and that will expose those who are vulnerable because it's movement is invisible.
I wrote this song as an upbeat political protest song comparing New Zealand and others with USA and UK. There is room for more than hope in this crisis because we see proof positive of the stop the spread protocols.
This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.
