Boris' Johnson's Handling Of The Pandemic
Boris tried to bluff and procrastinate his way through a pandemic response- what could have possibly gone wrong?
I know for many people, the constant news surrounding coronavirus affected their mental health during lockdown and they made the sensible choice to occasionally give themselves a break from it. I know that I did. Because of this, it can be hard to recall the timetable of mistakes in the government’s pandemic response. Especially because of the sheer number of screw-ups.
I will be honest, my expectations for how Boris would handle an unprecedented emergency were low. Very low. But he managed to impress me with his complete ineptitude.
I should make a quick caveat. For those that have read my other articles, it will be obvious that I did not vote for Boris, nor have I ever been a fan of his. However, if it had been a Labour government that produced this Coronavirus response, I would be just as critical. Even for those trying very hard, there is almost nothing to compliment about the government’s pandemic response. Spoiler alert: Boris Johnson’s handling of the COVID-19 virus resulted in thousands dying and the UK having the worst-case rate in Europe. It is important to remember that all countries (save China) had the same amount of virus warning. There is no extenuating circumstance that meant the UK should have it worse than anyone else. In fact, as an island country we should have had an advantage in helping stave off the virus compared to continental Europe. The reasons our numbers are so much higher lies with Boris’s government.
I am not criticising Boris and its government for not predicting the future. However, by the end of January the UK had its first cases of COVID-19 and the WHO declared a global health emergency. Despite this, Boris felt that February was an excellent time to go on holiday to his Chequers retreat. After all, he had achieved Brexit which was all he felt he needed to do. During this time, he missed five Cobra meetings regarding the pandemic. Cobra meetings are when the entire cabinet gathers to make decisive decisions. One would certainly expect the head of the cabinet to be there. Boris not being there either means that his laziness hindered the pandemic response, or that his absence in coordinating a pandemic response was not felt.
Either reason is not complimentary to his skills as Prime Minister. Boris did not need to predict the future, he just needed to bother going to meetings. Boris did not appear at a Cobra meeting until the beginning of March, by which time many scientific experts including Professor Neil Ferguson (one of the government’s most influential experts on COVID-19) had warned that action needed to be taken as the virus has an unusually high infection rate. The government has a history of denouncing experts, then they expected the country to trust that they are following scientific advice.
However, action was not taken. March 4th saw the biggest one-day surge of cases at the time (34), showing that the spread was not being successfully tracked. Boris told the population should sing Happy Birthday twice as they washed their hands and we would be fine. Because the government acted lackadaisical in their response, so did the populous. Cheltenham Festival started on the 10th May with over 60,000 racegoers a day for four days. On the 11th March Liverpool played Atletico Madrid with 50,000 in attendance supporting both sides. Three days later Spain went into lockdown. Many cases could have been prevented if these events were banned, rather than Boris simply telling people to wash their hands. Also, in this regard, June was obviously a great time to start enforcing quarantine for those entering the country as opposed to say, 3 months earlier.
Lockdown in the UK began on the 23rd March. However, pubs and restaurants had only been closed on the 20th and schools on the 18th. This very quick increase in measures shows that the government waited until the situation was critical before implementing them. There have been many subsequent reports stating that the death rate could have been halved if lockdown started a week earlier.
When a depletion of PPE was becoming a major problem in late April (when the weekly death rate peaked) the government resorted to telling medical staff to reuse equipment, increasing the risk to their safety. The government seemed to be running around like headless chickens trying to source PPE. This culminated with Hancock appearing in consecutive press briefings promising a shipment of 400,000 gowns from Turkey that kept being delayed. Finally, the RAF flew out to collect it but in the end it failed medical checks and couldn’t be used in hospitals. In hindsight, shipping a load of PPE to China and ignoring that PPE registration email from the EU in February didn’t seem quite so smart. While you could forgive one or two errors, the government is making the same stupid mistakes sourcing PPE over and over again. In August, 50 million face masks bought by the government could not be used by the NHS because they are the wrong type. Millions of pounds wasted because no one checked what type of strap was needed.
What should never be overstated is that the reason why the UK’s COVID-19 death toll is particularly high is because of the devastating situation in care homes. I truly believe that any report on the government’s action on care homes could ruin the government. What’s more, I think they believe that as well. Care home residents were known to be the most vulnerable. Ambulances would be bringing the elderly out of high-risk hospitals and demanding that they be accepted. Understaffed and underfunded care homes were then meant to prevent a virus spreading with no PPE.
The argument defending Boris’s actions through all of this has been making me very angry. The idea that ‘he is doing his best’. Primary school children get a gold star for effort. That luxury is not afforded to leaders of a country responsible for 66 million people. His best fell completely short of the mark and I do not believe in giving him any benefit of the doubt for his mistakes. When I was working a minimum wage café job, if I had waited two weeks before I started making coffee orders I would be fired on the spot. Why should we give the government more leniency.
However, there is a huge elephant in the room. A large elephant in the shape of the Prime Minister ending up in ICU with COVID-19. It would be a low blow to directly correlate his contraction of the virus with his blasé attitude towards it weeks earlier. What I will say is that there seemed to be no discernible difference in effective leadership regardless if the Prime Minister was in hospital or not.
What the UK governments (and in particular it’s head’s) pandemic response has proven an ever-present reality of running a country. All the words in the world are not a replacement for action. Rhetoric is meaningless in an emergency. Boris tried to invoke Churchill and inspire a nation to success. However, inspiration is meaningless if it is not followed by the government doing the work. Boris tried to invoke British Exceptionalism, but a virus isn’t one for making exceptions.
Boris does not respect the very electorate that sustains him. He used the language of British Exceptionalism to get into power and once that chapter was signed off he could lay back on his laurels and relax. He did not treat coronavirus as an emergency because he didn’t want it to be one. He forgot (or didn’t care) that above all else, the executive branches of government are designed to be the main managerial tool in an emergency. The civil service keeps a country running, the judiciary keeps the peace, the legislature is there to improve the country and the executive is there to take charge and organise a response when a situation requires immediate action. He may have taken for granted his duty, but the thousands who lost loved ones will not forget.
Despite starting the daily press conferences, Boris appeared in very few. He also seemed to only appear when he had good news to announce, such as the reopening of the country. For the days where the situation was dire or the government had screwed up majorly, Matt Hancock was sent out to the scaffold. Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of criticism for Matt Hancock, however, the buck should always stop at the head of government. The PM needs to assume responsibility for government failures. Boris either knew about the decisions and is responsible, or he didn’t and is incompetent.
Boris Johnson wanted to be remembered in the history books as the Prime Minister that finally took the UK out the EU. What will actually be written is an account of the man who left thousands of people to die on a scale that was prevented by many other countries.
Written by Zoe Williams
Zoe is 22 and originally from Bath but currently residing in Manchester. She just graduated in Politics and therefore loves a good rant about Brexit and Boris Johnson. She is currently working for a Coffee chain that shall remain nameless, but they pay far too little tax and keep their staff’s tips. Unsurprisingly she is on the market for a new job. She is also a textile artist when she finds the time.