From Facebook

Here is the obligatory statement before posting anything that might be seen as critical of Boris Johnson. ‘I hope that Boris Johnson makes a swift and full recovery from Covid-19, and is able to resume his duties as soon as possible.’
I hope he recovers swiftly so he can answer a few questions.

Questions for Boris Re Covid-19 from Clare Donoghue.

In answer to those various ‘support Boris’ memes going round the internet: Yes, let’s hope Boris gets better quickly so he can answer the following 14 urgent questions:

1. Why did Boris and his government choose to ignore World Health Organisations guidelines on dealing with a pandemic, which are to test-trace-isolate?

2. Why instead did Boris choose to go for a non-peer reviewed dodgy policy of ‘let the country take it on the chin’ ‘herd immunity’?

3. Why did Boris chose to follow dodgy ‘herd immunity’ policy without ensuring the most vulnerable were shielded from catching Covid-19 through a strict lockdown protective bubble for them?

4. Why did Boris and his own father ignore social distancing rules for public health protection instead going down the pub and ‘shaking hands with everyone’?

5. Why did Boris and co only listen to the change in projection figures from Professor Neil Ferguson at Imperial in March when the Lancet had published data in January showing that ‘herd immunity’ strategy was likely to lead to ¼ million deaths in UK?

6. Why did the government feel it was necessary to deny that Dominic Cummings – one of the main advocates of ‘herd immunity’ strategy despite not being a scientist let alone an epidemiologist (first degree = Ancient and Modern History ) argued that ‘if some pensioners die before their time, so be it.’?

7. Why did Boris not use the 3-week window of opportunity when Covid-19 his S.E. Asia to review the government report from its own 2017 Exercise Cygnus which said that the UK was not equipped to cope with ‘a moderate ‘flu pandemic’ and use the 3 weeks to stock up on necessary PPE for medical staff and ventilators for patients?

8. Why did Boris reject offers from UK-based ventilator-making firms to sell their latest round of production to the UK government? With no offer from UK government this kit was quickly bought by other countries?

9. Why did Boris, while ignoring offers of kit from established UK firms, commission two companies which have no previous experience of making ventilators – Dyson and JCB – to start making ventilators for the UK? Could their being awarded this contract be anything to do with the fact that both companies are headed by CEOs who are big Tory-party donors?

10. Why did Boris reject the opportunity offered by the EU to pool procurement costs for necessary ventilator equipment despite the fact that the UK is one of the most under-resourced big economies in the EU for intensive care beds and ventilators having approximately only a quarter of the capacity that Germany has? Why did his office first say ‘we’re not in the EU anymore’ as a reason and then change it to he didn’t receive the email invite as it went to his spam folder?

11. Why did Boris downgrade World Health Organisation recommendations for what constitutes necessary protective personal equipment (PPE) for front-line medical staff working with highly contagious Covid-19 patients? The lack of PPE for medical personnel is evident in the numbers of doctors, nurses and care assistants who are contracting the illness and dying from it.

12. Why did Boris encourage retired NHS staff, who by their older age and associated vulnerability of underlying age-related health conditions are more at risk of infection, back into front-line work with Covid-19 patients without ensuring these (and all other) medical staff had sufficient and effective, WHO recommended PPE? It is no coincidence that the reported deaths of Drs from Covid-19 tend to be over 50 years old, some having come out of retirement to volunteer (e.g. Dr Alfa Saadu, 68 years old who died last week; Dr Anton Sebastianpillai in his 70s, Dr Abdul Mabud Chowdhury 53, and Dr Jitendra Rathod, 58 who all died this week from Covid-19 contracted while tending the sick).

13. Why do we have a steeply rising infection rate and death toll (currently standing at 65,077 confirmed cases and 7,978 Covid-19 deaths in hospital (so not counting those who have died at home or in care homes in that total in the UK as of 5pm on Wednesday 8th April 2020) when we compare this to South Korea which has a comparable size population (51.5 million people compared to 66.65 million in UK) who live predominantly in apartment blocks in highly urbanised areas, and has a total of 10, 423 confirmed Covid-19 cases and a total of only 204 – yes two-hundred and four deaths compared to our nearly eight-thousand and rising deaths?

14. Why the UK’s COVID-19 trajectory looks so bad that World-leading disease data analysts, The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle, have projected that the UK will become the country worst hit by the coronavirus pandemic in Europe, accounting for more than 40% of total deaths across the continent and predicts 66,000 UK deaths from Covid-19 by August, with a peak of nearly 3,000 a day, based on a steep climb in daily deaths early in the outbreak?