As the smoke clears after the latest and heaviest bombardment yet by Dominic Cummings, how much damage has he inflicted on Boris, the surely punch-drunk health secretary Matt Hancock, and the various other actors in the tragedy that is the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK? While Cummings’s evidence was, in some respects, devastating, much of it was either already in the public domain, albeit in less forensic detail, or could largely have been inferred by intelligent analysis of known facts.
That, however, does not make Cummings an entirely reliable witness. When a man with a vengeful agenda is also an expert miner of data, he will possess an ability to present that data in the manner most damaging to those he wishes to discredit (that would be you, Boris). To the political class and the commentariat, such infighting is a source of fascination; to the wider public it is more likely to prove an irritation. For bereaved families there is an urgent desire to discover if the loss of their loved ones was preventable and, if so, who are the guilty parties who failed to prevent it?
Apart from that salient question, the public, appeased by the success of the UK’s vaccination campaign, is more concerned about the future than the past. When will social liberties be regained, businesses kick-started and normality reintroduced? The matter of recriminations can wait until the distant pandemic inquiry has reported. The timing of that inquiry epitomises the peculiar way in which, in this unique crisis, political expediency accidentally coincides with the public interest.
We need have no illusions about the government’s motives for postponing the public inquiry until a far-off date. The dogs in the street know it is the instinct of Boris, like all politicians, to play for time and delay the almost certainly embarrassing findings of a public inquiry until after the next general election. In the meantime, the response to critics can be: I think we should wait for the inquiry’s findings before rushing to judgement. Yet, almost perversely, on this occasion and in the present unique circumstances, deferring the full inquiry is also, objectively, the right thing to do. The crisis is still happening.
That is where Cummings, and the joint chairs of the Commons committee, Jeremy Hunt and Greg Clark, have done a great service. In gathering some evidence now, and airing arguments about flaws in the decision-making, they hopefully enable the state machine that failed in February 2020 to learn some valuable lessons quickly. If Number 10 is prepared to listen properly.
It is increasingly evident that this crisis involving a lethal and rapidly evolving virus is developing into an exceptionally long-haul event. Even after our chastening experience of the past 15 months, we are in danger of wishful thinking, of deluding ourselves into believing it is over. In reality, our present sense of emerging from a blitz that has ended may be self-deceptive. It would be more realistic to regard the current vaccine-supported relief from imminent danger, in the Churchillian terms favoured by Boris, as the end of the beginning.
The versatility of the virus presents a recurring danger. How lethal will future variants prove to be? Even if they turn out still to be significantly vulnerable to vaccines, the immunity conferred by vaccination may not endure longer than eight months, according to some scientific calculations, though recent studies, not yet peer-reviewed, suggest a year’s immunity is guaranteed. At any rate, on the precautionary principle, booster doses – perhaps tens of millions of them – will be required in the autumn, with all the issues of planning, logistics and expenditure that implies. It is not morbid pessimism, but realism, to speculate that the virus may have many unpleasant surprises in store for us.
Most people, at present, have no reason to worry; instead, they should focus on redirecting their lives towards normality, while observing the prescribed, common-sense safeguards. But the opposite applies to the government. The precautionary principle dictates that governments must be pessimists, constantly rehearsing worst-case scenarios and anticipating disasters, in order to fulfil their responsibility to protect the public. The signs are that Boris and his ministers have become concerned about the advance of the Indian variant, to the extent that much of the liberalisation of activities that was pencilled in for 21 June may now be in question.
As we report on Reaction, cases of the Indian variant have risen by 3,535 to 6,959 since last week, with 48,500 people infected in the week to 22 May. Yet it is too early for those figures to reflect the consequences of freeing up indoor mixing since 17 May. Most concerningly, SAGE has warned that the R rate of the virus has risen to 1.0 to 1.1, taking the needle into the red zone for transmission. Any government has to take cognisance of such developments and modify its plans accordingly.
On the credit side, only three per cent of patients suffering from the Indian variant were fully vaccinated, as were just five individuals ending up in A&E; of the 12 deaths, eight were unvaccinated. So, there is concrete evidence that, for now, the vaccines can hold the line. They are holding the line politically, too: Boris has escaped the consequences of his various irresponsible actions, purely due to the credit accruing to him for the successful vaccine roll-out.
That should not blind us to the mistakes that have been made, beginning with the unpardonable delay in closing the UK’s borders at the beginning of the first wave, when planes daily disgorged travellers from China and Italy at Heathrow, to mingle freely in the community. Who said the burnt child fears the fire? Just a year later, the Prime Minister was keeping India off the travel red list reportedly because of his desire to adhere to a planned meeting with Indian premier Narendra Modi. The consequence of that serial irresponsibility is that Boris finds his much-hyped plan for a return to normality on 21 June threatened by the burgeoning Indian variant.
If we are to salvage the economy, the government must proceed for the future, near and distant, according to a carefully calibrated plan, finessed with alternatives dependent on the emerging viral situation, ready to respond as smoothly as a train changing points. For the first 15 months of this 21st-century Battle of Britain, Boris was content to fly by the seat of his pants. That is no longer an option: from now on, such irresponsibility will be career-ending.
Does the government have a plan? If so, what is the strategy? Its basic provisions should include the guaranteed availability to the entire vulnerable section of the population of the most up-to-date booster vaccines by November; a distribution network, improved from past experience, evenly paced across the country; large stockpiles of PPE and other relevant equipment; an expansion of hospital beds and, so far as realistically possible, of staff, to meet the worst-case scenario for next winter. In tandem, the NHS must be helped to whittle down the huge waiting list for treatment of non-Covid illnesses that threaten to overtake the virus in mortality rates.
There must also be complementary strategies for economic recovery, targeted at self-help for businesses and a weaning of companies off state dependency. As with the clinical provisions, such plans must be adaptable to circumstances. It will require joined-up government, with Health, the Treasury and all other departments of state following the same script and engaging in a degree of transparency.
So, Boris, end the nerve-racking speculation and put us all in the picture. What is the Covid plan?