Free COVID Tests hit profits. As in the 1830s they are more important than people
Yet COVID is still with us. 5th April 2022 saw 50,202 new cases reported and 368 deaths. Infection rates are rising across most of the UK.
Yet Boris Johnson stopped free COVID tests at the end of March, and had already ended a requirement to wear masks, socially distance or self-isolate if you have COVID.
Two years today since the first lockdown & we’re still not learning from our history. Sajid Javid has said the rise in Covid cases is of ‘no particular concern’. Chris Whitty examining the reality suggested otherwise
In short Johnson is still putting profit before people as he did 2 years ago and as ultimately back to the nineteenth century pro-market Governments have always done. Richard Evans in Epidemics and Revolutions: Cholera in Nineteenth Century Europe (Past and Present 120) noted that as control measures against the Cholera epidemic of 1830/31 Governments ‘were to some extent giving way to pressure from merchants, traders and manufacturers’
The cost to individuals who get sick in 2022 is fortunately not usually as great, in the main as it was in March 2020 but nor is it pleasant for many who catch COVID now. Still Johnson, Javid and the rest have moved on. Profits are at stake. The problem that the Tories have is that profits are made by people.
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