July 2020

3rd July

Boris Johnson gave a speech in which he said (in part): “Lockdown only succeeded in controlling the virus because everyone worked together, and we will only succeed in reopening if everyone works together again. Because we are not out of the woods yet. The virus is still with us and the spike in Leicester has shown that. If it starts running out of control again this government will not hesitate in putting on the brakes and re-imposing restrictions.

“Anyone who flouts social distancing and COVID-Secure rules is not only putting us all at risk but letting down those businesses and workers who have done so much to prepare for this new normal. So as we take this next step, our biggest step yet, on the road to recovery, I urge the British people to do so safely. [No mention of Dominic Cummings' transgressions! – see entry for 26th March]

“Remember – don’t gather in groups of more than 6 outside or 2 households in any setting. Keep your distance from those outside your household – 2 metres if you can, 1 metre with precautions if you can’t. Wash your hands. Let’s all stay alert, control the virus, save lives – and enjoy summer safely.”

• At the same time the Department of Health and Social Care set out a “contain framework” for COVID-19 and published guidelines for local decision makers.

Six principles, it said, support effective implementation of an integrated national and local system:

1. the primary responsibility is to make the public safe.

2. build on public health expertise and use a systems approach.

3. be open with data and insight so everyone can protect themselves and others.

4. build consensus between decision-makers to secure trust, confidence and consent.

5. follow well-established emergency management principles.

6. consider equality, economic, social and health-related impacts of decisions.

 

6th July

Boris Johnson, during a visit to Goole in East Yorkshire, said: “We discovered too many care homes didn’t really follow the procedures in the way that they could have.” This predictably caused uproar among care home owners, staff, politicians and others. A government spokesperson “clarified”, somewhat absurdly, later that day that the PM had been pointing out that “nobody knew what the correct procedures were” because the amount [sic] of people with no COVID-19 symptoms transmitting the virus was unknown. He added that “the PM thought that throughout the pandemic care homes had done a brilliant job under very difficult circumstances”. The CEO of a charity, Community Integrated Care, described Mr Johnson’s words as “at best, clumsy and cowardly”. Labour's shadow health secretary, Jon Ashworth, said care workers had been left “insulted” and “hurt”, called for an apology and challenged the government to explain which care homes didn’t follow which procedures. Ministers went on to repeat the spokesman’s deceitful comment and no apology or explanation for the PM’s incredibly stupid remark was forthcoming.

• It should be noted that well into March official guidance from the government was that it was very unlikely that there would be infections in care homes. [Appendix 3 and Appendix 5]

 

15th July

Boris Johnson committed the government to an “independent inquiry” into the pandemic but gave no indication of when it might happen. Answering a question from the acting leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Ed Davey, the PM said it was not the right time for an investigation but there would certainly be one in the future so lessons could be learned. Sir Ed said the UK had “suffered one of the worst death rates in the world and Europe's worst death rate for health and care workers”.

• A group representing people, mainly the elderly, bereaved by COVID-19 said the PM’s pledge was “a long way from what families need to see”. COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice said the PM had refused to meet them to discuss their concerns (and he was still refusing to do so at the beginning of September).

 

17th July

The Prime Minister unveiled another “roadmap”, this one intended to get the country through the next stage of the pandemic. This was described as a “conditional” roadmap for the coming months, and Mr Johnson said he hoped the country might be able to get back to “near-normal” by Christmas. He set out what he said might be an “optimistic” vision to revive the economy and get workers back to the office.

“We’re making sure,” he said, “that we’re ready for winter and planning for the worst. But even as we plan for the worst I strongly believe we should hope for the best. That means looking ahead with optimism, now extending our plan to lift the remaining national measures, which have restricted our lives since March, so we can get back to something closer to normal life.”

 

21st July

Addressing parliament’s Health and Social Care Select Committee, the chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, stated that there had been “no huge delay in the government taking action on coronavirus”. The committee, chaired by former health secretary Jeremy Hunt, was told that widespread community testing earlier on in the outbreak required “an infrastructure we did not have”.

Professor Whitty blamed “incredibly limited testing capacity” and previous failure to build up the UK’s health infrastructure for why a test, trace and isolate system was not modelled ahead of the pandemic. [Appendix 5]

 

24th July

Boris Johnson said that although there would be “tough times ahead” for the UK’s economy, the UK will be past the coronavirus crisis by the middle of 2021. “I think that by the middle of next year we will be well on the way, we will be well on the way past it,” he said.

He also said there were lessons to be learned over the way his government handled the coronavirus pandemic. He told the BBC there were “open questions” about whether the country went into lockdown soon enough to slow the rate of infections, and there would be plenty of opportunities to learn the lessons of what happened.

He added: “I take full responsibility for everything that the government did,” and stated that his administration had stuck to the scientists’ advice “like glue”.

 

25th July

Boris Johnson said that ministers had underestimated how long the COVID-19 pandemic would last and said the UK could still be dealing with the virus until next summer (2021) and suggested that the new rules on face masks in shops and enclosed spaces could remain in place for at least a year. His remarks came as he admitted that he and his government could have acted “differently” earlier on during the pandemic but he denied being too slow to act.

 

27th July

Baroness Dido Harding, who chaired NHS improvement and headed the government’s “test and trace” programme, told a Confederation of British Industry webinar that the UK had to be “really quite obsessive when we start to see cases rise and try and stamp on it at a very local level”.

 

28th July

Boris Johnson said that the government must take “swift and decisive action” to tackle the risk of when the virus starts “to bubble up again”. If only there had been “swift and decisive action” back in February!

 

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