Thread by @mabonapgwynfor

Covid increase in Wales - the blame game

It's convenient for politicians to blame the people. It's a form of deflection. But people respond to circumstances and cues from authority.

We need to be honest about the situation we find ourselves in

Thread ⬇️

https://twitter.com/WalesOnline/status/1336598440235634688

The UK Government failed to take the pandemic seriously in early 2020. They first had months to prepare. When it was rampaging through Italy in February, they could have made preparations. Neither the UK nor Welsh Governments took action /2

We rightly blame the UK Government. Operation Cygnus informed us some years ago that the UK was woefully ill prepared for a public health crisis of this kind.

But the Welsh Government are equally to blame. Over a decade ago they were warned of a lack in the Health workforce /3

And only a few years ago the Healith committee warned of a chronic lack of critical care beds. Wales was nowhere near capable of facing such a crisis.

When it hit these shores both governments refused to react. Remember the trains of Scottish fans coming down to Cardiff for /4

the Six Nations, or the Stereophonic gigs in Cardiff and Manchester?

When they eventually announced a lockdown it was too late. The virus was embedded in communities across the Isles.

A lockdown does not and cannot kill the virus. It merely stalls it, and buys us time /5

That time should be used wisely, to set up an efficient test, track and trace system, which is the best way to tackle the virus in the absence of a vaccine.

However, they failed to set up such a system, and in England they came out far too early when most of the north /6

continued to have an R rate > 1 and growing. Summer gave a further opportunity to get systems in place, yet even with a lot of grand talk about world beating systems they also wasted that opportunity.

Furthermore, by then more research gave us more clues about how to live /7

with the virus - vitamin D supplements and fresh air help us, yet while other governments have promoted these two simple things, they've largely been ignored here.

By this time (late summer) New Zealand was getting back to normal, Iceland, Faroes, Slovakia, S Korea, Taiwan, /8

Vietnam and Japan were forging ahead. Yet no-one in authority here thought to emulate their successful strategies of developing a locally driven aggressive test, track and Isolate programme.

All the while financially support proved to be paltry for most workers /9

Outbreaks occurred in the most economically deprived areas, yet instead of addressing the financial challenges facing people, those in authority chose to blame them for not listening while giving massive contracts worth millions to friends or relatives of Tories. /10

During all of this privileged individuals have flouted the rules, from Cummings to the Windsor to Rita Ora. And here we are, nearly a year later, and I have to ask, have we learnt anything? While other countries have come to relative terms with the virus, the abysmal /11

failure here to show leadership and an understanding of the situation has meant that the virus has impacted on us for far longer than it should have and has understandably led to a mixture of fatigue and conspiracies. Sections of society have suffered disproportionately /12

Women, BAME people, elderly, and those from impoverished households. The poorest have been battered after ten years of austerity. Wages have stagnated. Quality of life has diminished. Opportunities lost. And we're facing Christmas, with everybody pressurising us /13

remoreselesly over many decades to spend and drink and spend and eat and spend and spend and spend.

And here they are, those in authority, criticising people for trying to make ends meet, for trying to lead as normal a life as possible, for doing what they've been told to do /14

for decades.
Wrong on every level.
Those in authority have had a tough time, but they should take responsibility for the utter failure that has led to this. A failure that's been fifty years in the making. A failure that has rampant capitalism at its very root.

/End