Scapegoating the people: failing to self-isolate comes second to UK Government failures

According to the experts, we can be ‘confident’ that more that 70% of people (across the UK) are not staying at home for the full period after displaying symptoms of Covid.

The experts don’t seem to have noticed that the infection rate in Scotland is currently well below half that in England and only around two thirds of that in Wales and Northern Ireland, suggesting that maybe the compliance is better here. I’ve asked the researchers for a 4 nations breakdown of the their data but expect to hear that it’s somehow not available or ‘useful.’

Anyhow, this focus on the self-isolation failures is only a part of the story.

Now, those who had the symptoms and who were not prevented from self-isolating due to family and economic pressures, that is to say those who easily could have, but who selfishly didn’t, share responsibility for the surge in deaths in the second wave.

However, this focus on the general population is classic scapegoating, by elites, of those less powerful. The Wuhan blame game is a classic example. Did the virus originate in a research centre, in industrial-scale farming or in the ‘wet markets’ used by the poor? The latter were quickly blamed and the global media piled in with images of peasant tastes, to reinforce Western conclusions with disgust. I don’t know the answer but given their history, I’d go for industrial-scale farming. We won’t find out of course because powerful interests will be protected.

Something similar operates with this allocation of blame to those who have not self-isolated.

It’s worth noting that the experts ‘confidence’ above is based on self-reporting surveys. They do not actually ‘know’ that 70% did not self-isolate adequately.

Anyhow, getting far less attention than it should, is the catastrophic failure of the UK Government to protect its people by controlling its borders and in pressurising the devolved authorities not to control internal borders.

80% of all Scottish second-wave infections came from Spain with the other 20% in those returning from holiday in England or coming from England to holiday across Scotland.

This failure was due to the Conservative Party’s weakness in allowing business and corporate interests to determine policy, from the slow initial lockdown, to the current struggle, nearly a year late, to control international air traffic.

24 thoughts on “Scapegoating the people: failing to self-isolate comes second to UK Government failures”

  2. Not for a single moment do I believe that during any of The Cobra meetings even though Boris failed to attend the 1st five,that at the very least one of the Science experts imparted advice along the following lines,if Not then one can only assume 3 things
    A .Cowards
    B. Wrongly appointed .C.Deriliction of Duty & Incompetence
    So here it is
    I cannot stress enough the vital importance of what i say next
    This virus as we all know is a corona one,nature has designed it to mutate often and rapidly all for the purpose of ensuring success
    So what follows if you do not act with due haste,diligence and proper measures immediately is
    Then many infections shall occur on a ever increasing bases,therefore the greater number of infection the greater number of mutations.Which is guaranteed to one or all of the following ones arising and remember that Nature has pre programmed for the virus this already
    More infectious, highly virulent,more deadly
    And the one to avoid Vaccine resistant
    If you fail to heed these facts and let the virus rip then this current pandemic shall become endemic which means it is with us for ever just like the common cold is
    Why do you think WHO is giving you such strong advise and guidance
    History will not judge those in power lightly
    Who fail upon these matters
    And the destiny of any Nation who fails to act accordingly WILL fail in health and economically,along with you becoming a pariah state in the eyes of those nations that act properly
    The consequences of failure can and only shall Amplify
    I have carried out my duty now your fate depends on your actions now
    There shall be no 2nd bite of the cherry
    Win or lose
    The Virus knows what it shall do tis written into its program

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  3. We won’t know exactly where the virus originated but there is an international team of WHO folk in Wuhan right now, just arrived the other day. They are hoping to investigate but China are not too keen as we can imagine.
    The people of Spain are very angry that politicians have been vaccinated before everyone else! Latin America is seeing huge spikes in infection, to unmanageable levels. What a crazy world humans have fashioned. Ducks are be slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands in France because of bird flu which is also now huge in India.
    Sorry the gloomy news.
    It’s typical the EngGov blame people for not self isolating. Anyone remember Johnson, eat out to help out, go to the pub and have a few pints etc. Loose your job? EngGov will make you beg for money to afford the basics, or get yourself down to the food bank, if they have any supplies that is.
    Oh and air b&b flats in our street are occupied again by holiday makers, though usually they stay until England’s hotspots see reduced infections.
    Read an article by a blogger who is pro Indy and sort of pro SNP, or rather was. Now the ScotGov is corrupt as hell and Sturgeon is behind it all. The comments confirm it all and if we dare to question the whole sh**show of what is obvious outside interference, we are also blind idiots, who would willingly keep a corrupt regime in power in Scotland and, the BritNat state is keeping mum about the inquiry because they want to keep NS as FM so as to make sure independence never happens.
    I give up.

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      1. Arthetty—we are on our way.
        The Brits are filling their nappies as they realise they cannot keep us.
        Osborne thinks they will fall to a second or third tier nation without us.
        No more Permanent Security Council for old Engerlund.

        Yet they do nothing to keep us. The latest swizz looks to be a Constitutional Commission—who in their right minds would sign up to that?
        It’ll sit for ten years and then say “NO ye canny”

        We are on our WAY!

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  4. Your “80% of all Scottish second-wave infections came from Spain with the other 20% in those returning from holiday in England or coming from England to holiday across Scotland” ignores the multiple-hop route, Spain->?->Scotland. Genomic sequencing only confirms the source, not the route or how many or few were first or second couriers.

    Otherwise I completely agree, HMG’s reluctance to contain and control international travel has been disastrous, as has been their widely condemned T&T and isolation strategy. The why remains the puzzle.

    You are quite right to point out the elephant in the room, prevalence.
    Would the “UK” variant have arisen without high prevalence, would claims of higher infectivity been supportable without it, and now I note the “more deadly” flag being raised by Johnson, a man I wouldn’t trust to run a bath. By way of example how far this allegation has travelled, here a Romanian report, note the repeat “thought to” in –
    “The new variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19, is thought to be driving increased transmission of the disease in parts of the UK and is thought to be more contagious.”
    https://www.romaniajournal.ro/society-people/health/other-two-cases-of-uk-covid-19-strain-reported-in-romania/
    The Ministry will be worried by the latest “more deadly” allegation…

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    1. The EU
      Are at this moment attempting to bring together all 27 members in order to discuss and implement a complete ban on all air & rail travel between members
      Apparently A.Merkle is insisting upon it
      UK destiny is a Pariah state so separation becomes vital soon as the pandemic becomes declared officially covid 19 is now a Endemic,which means it is with us for ever
      And as such Nations that have successfully controlled its spread MUST now close their borders to and from Nations with high prevalence NO CHOICE NOW
      so UK officially will soon become a Pariah State and remain so till it reduces Case numbers to such a low level that any track trace & isolate system is guaranteed to maintain very low levels.Vaccine or no Vaccine
      Scotland managed to do this with the 1st wave,but the English Kent mutant put paid to that
      Over to you Boris and your trumpet players in the ABC

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    2. ‘Ignores the multiple-hop route, Spain->?->Scotland.’

      Wouldn’t most have been one-hop package holidaymakers? Spain to Glasgow/Edinburgh?

      I suppose some via Manchester and Newcastle

      London?

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      1. Sorry John but no. By multiple-hop I meant the infection could have been picked up anywhere via 2nd 3rd 4th parties etc., none of whom may have fallen ill or been identified by random test.
        eg – A Clydebank couple who spent a week in Benidorm and came back clean were unwittingly infected by the taxi-driver who caught it at Tesco from the lad delivering from Leeds who caught it from etc…….Spain.
        The Romanian article on the UK variant examples this, no direct or indirect connection to the UK, there will be a link but they simply cannot find it.
        With England’s already worrying Covid prevalence, Johnson & Co were playing with fire by leaving the door open to import and export as well as mutations, and I’m certain they will do so again.

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        1. Bob
          You clearly demonstrate a fundamental understanding of the vector and transmission
          Routes by which this virus spreads rapidly
          And that is exactly explains why Boris from the very beginning has dithered and utterly incompetent in not closing borders in conjuction with a short sharp total lock down
          But more importantly a promise to pay 80 % of income to all,then enforce
          All in order to get fully up to speed with a fully functional test,trace,track and isolate system
          Boris thought he was protecting the money
          He has F***king blew it into the stratosphere
          Along with the health of especially England
          Just wait till the awful truth of long covid
          And unable to end lock down for a very very long time bite
          History will judge him extremely poorly
          And to add to woes The one who lost Scotland
          What you sow tis what you reap
          And his harvest now almost ripe

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  5. And in NZ they are now finding the UK strain but thankfully in their supervised quarantine centres at present. NZ life continues almost as normal. They have just had a record holiday season with many of the campervan sites fully booked. They are delaying the roll out of their vaccine while they watch how the rest of the world perform. If only the UK had the resources to deal with covid in a similar way.

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  6. As posted below, “Less than 20% of people in England fully self-isolate when asked to do so, according to documents released from the government’s scientific advisory group for emergencies, which said mass testing would be of no use unless this percentage rose.”

    The point being that testing and tracing is not what breaks transmission. It ius self-isolation that breaks transmission. £22 billion, I think, has been spent on the English test and trace system and belatedly some thought is being given to supporting people to self isolate.

    Self-isolating is as impportant or more important than controlling infection coming in over the borders. Both are part of the strategy outlined long ago by the WHO to control the virus.

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  7. My daughter lives in South London and she reports that during all the lockdowns large numbers of people have been out and about. Largely, this is due to the fact the because inequality is greater in London than anywhere else many have to go out because they have to earn. In addition, because of property speculation there is a lack of green space for people to get exercise and distance physically, when one borough opened cemeteries to provide more green space local Tories started carping about disrespect for the dead and the media fabricated stories of drugs and drinking. Result – cemeteries locked and security personnel put on the gates to admit only
    ‘genuine’ mourners. This media hoohah is class war.

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    1. My daughter – also in S London – reports the same. Did yours mention the hospitals being totally overrun?

      Her work’s only essential because if they don’t work, they don’t eat! She worries more about her team than about herself. The bosses are really reluctant to furlough – although they have been persuaded to do so for those either shielding themselves or with relatives who are…

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      1. Fortunately, she has not had to go near a hospital.Her GP practice now offers many of the routine testing procedures.

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  8. Some thought is being given by the UK gov to a plan to offer £500 unconditionally to evryone who should be self-isolating..

    Rishi Sunak is agin the idea so it will probably not happen.

    Some have been warning about possible unintended consequences. In India, in order to deal with the increasing numbers and threat of cobras, a bounty was offered for every dead cobra produced. Eventually, it was found that cobras were being bred and killed to claim the bounty.At that point, the bounty was stopped and those breeding the snakes released their charge into the wild. The problem was made worse, not better.

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    1. There are two strands of Tory thinking in their opposition to this.

      One is the mendacious ‘something for nothing’/’dependency culture’ trope (which Johan Lamont when she was ill-fated leader of Scottish Labour used it, too).

      And the second is about greed and power. Austerity has been about the transfer of wealth and power from the great majority of us to the financial clique who run Westminster and Whitehall at the behest of global capital. Funding and resources given to help people isolate would mean a redistribution towards the people in the same way as food for schoolchildren is. In Tory/media world, these are the ‘undeserving poor’ – they will “squander the money on booze and fags’. By keeping people with minimal support, they are disempowered and more susceptible to ‘project Fear’ type propaganda.

      The pandemic has created what in times past would have been described as a ‘pre-revolutionary situation’ and the powerful clique know this and are using ‘divide-and-rule’ as one of their strategies to sustain their power, as they have done, often successfully, in the past. However, sometimes the pressure for change becomes irresistable. The election of social democratic governments has, in the past, in many countries, been one way of bringing about some change without bloodshed.

      In the US, for example, the election of President Biden is an example (cue sneers from the various fringe ‘socialist’ groups!)

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    2. “Rishi Sunak is agin the idea so it will probably not happen”

      I read the Johnson was too – because they’re already offered one £500 payment…

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  9. Who was the controlling mind?

    It was not the advisors, nor the public, nor various organisations.
    It has to focus on the man who directed or guided the actions of others.

    Example: The Herald of Free Enterprise capsize. Do you blame the ramp seaman, the deck loading officer, the Captain OR do you blame the Managing Director who demanded a faster vessel turn around at ports.

    The controlling mind may not have directly ordered corners to be cut in writing but he is the person who is responsible.

    Why is the blame always directed at the bottom of the pyramid?

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    1. The Chinnook helicoptor that went down full of VIP, I think they blamed the pilot.
      When the rich blame the poor for being poor, having made sure they stay poor, we have a huge problem. In Scotland, the ScotGov are attempting to take the poor out of poverty, which goes against everything the BritNat state stands for. It’s why Scotland needs independence and why a majority of the people of Scotland know that and will vote for it now.

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