Coronavirus: PPE, the NHS and Government Failures

Why the government will need to be held accountable for their handling of the coronavirus outbreak

As the coronavirus crisis continues to grip the UK, so does the government’s failure to properly deal with the situation is becoming clearer almost daily.

The government told the public that they were prepared for this outbreak. They set a target of 100,000 tests a day by the end of April, a target which is looking light years away at this point.

If the government was prepared for this outbreak, then surely care homes wouldn’t have been reduced to making their own personal protective equipment? A news segment showed one care home creating their own masks and aprons with the residents helping. It is a dystopian kind of situation which should never, ever be acceptable.

When the NHS was first created and launched in 1948 under Clement Atlee’s Labour government, it stressed that the service was not a charity. It is something which has been built up into a health service which is one of the best in the world.

A 100-year-old war veteran is raising money for the NHS charities by walking up and down his garden. He has raised an incredible £24 million and it is the attitude of a true gentleman and a hero. But it’s not something which should be even necessary in a nation such as the UK.

The money will be welcome to those who need it most, but the money should be available before a 99-year-old war hero started to fundraising from his garden. This man has served his country more than most of us combined, he should not need to fund any aspect of the NHS.

In this week’s Sunday Times, it was reported that Boris Johnson and his government had several opportunities to properly prepare the UK for the epidemic. Most worrying was that Johnson himself allegedly missing COBRA meetings on the coronavirus. Although it isn’t mandatory for him to attend these, it doesn’t sit right knowing that so many were missed by the PM.

It’s simple, these meetings may well have given the UK the preparation to save thousands of lives. There are now over 15,000 people who have died after contracting coronavirus. Many more will follow, many deaths which could have been avoided with a more willingness to understand the impact of this virus.

There will be several issues to look back on once the virus has passed. The dealing of it from Johnson and his government should, if the nation has any integrity, come under significant scrutiny. Yet what is more than likely is that the government will continue to go unchecked and that the Conservatives will be looked upon heroically for guiding the country through hard times, when the numbers at the end of the pandemic will tell a very different story.

At the end of the day, in my own opinion, the lack of ramped up testing and failure to bring on a tougher lockdown sooner should be the two prongs of attack used by the new Labour shadow cabinet on this government. its just important to wait for the right moment.