We are coming to the end of July, and it has been 6 months since the world, billionaires and their neo-liberal apparatchiks excluded, first properly acknowledged that we are all facing an imminent and potentially catastrophic global health disaster. At that time certain governments around the world had the basic human compassion and emotional maturity to put the well-being of their respective populations ahead of the wealth and status of their peers. Others did not.
Six months on, and ignoring the gas-lighting of the intellectually and emotionally deficient that the 1% put in charge in certain countries, the lies and flaws of the economic and political systems that exist around the world are now patently clear for everyone to see.
This time last month the neo-liberal establishment in the UK made the case that the new infection rate had reached a point where lifting the lockdown was a good idea. The graph below shows that the number of newly confirmed cases in the UK being reported to the WHO at that time was trending downwards.
As mentioned previously, these figures are taken every 5 days from the WHO situation reports.
The fact that it was moving downwards didn’t mean that there was not still a very significant risk. Between the 7th June and the 11th June 1,308 new cases on average were being confirmed every day. Between 12th June and the 16th June that number rose to 1,345 new cases confirmed on average each day. Based on the governments own figures the equivalent of a large secondary school was being infected with a potentially lethal virus every single day.
And how has this changed since the lockdown was lifted?
The updated graph shows that the curve continued to flatten out. It is worth pointing out that the figures for the 7th July have been taken out, due to a minusing out of a what was said to be a previous double counting by the government.
While there is a slight upward trajectory in the most recent numbers, it is difficult to argue that it has been going on long enough to predict an upward trend, yet.
That being said, between 12th July and the 27th July 910 new cases were being reported on average each day for the UK. Which according to government statistics, is just shy of an average sized state funded secondary school.
So the real question is how do these confirmed infections equate to the number of UK residents that are dying while under the care of the De Pfeffel Johnson government?
And as reassuring as it is to see the downward trajectory of this curve, it is worth remembering what it is we are looking at. This is still a highly lethal virus. Between the 2nd June 2020 and 27th June 2020 238 people were dying every day from COVID-19. That is the equivalent of 1½ London Underground tube carriages filled to capacity every single day being wiped out.
And while that longer graph shows the curve tailing off, it is worth remembering that this is very much in relation to earlier in the year. When you look at the more recent weeks alone the full scope of the current situation is far easier to see.
Between 2nd July and the 27th July 2338 people died in the UK from COVID-19. That is on average, 93 lives ended every day.
It is difficult to process the magnitude of these numbers, unless you have directly lost someone close to you over the course of this pandemic. If you are luckier enough to have not gone through that, it is perhaps easier to fully process it when it is put into a wider context.
On the 7th July 2005 a series of bombs were detonated in London that killed 52 people and injured a further 700. A year earlier on 11th March 2004 a series of bombs were detonated across the Madrid train network that killed 193 people and injured around 2,000 people. In the UK today we are currently facing a healthcare crisis, that is killing and harming more people than the London and Madrid bombings combined every three days.
And it is not just the residents of the UK being forced to face a healthcare disaster with a bunch of inept sociopaths in control.
Countries around the world have all been faced with a largely similar national crisis. And while there are countless variables differentiating the various communities behaviour, one of the most pronounced has been the policy decisions taken by the systems of political and economic management in each of those countries. And looking at that graph, however bad we are having it, the people living in the USA are subject to one of the worst systems of economic and political management on the planet today.
However, it is worth putting even this terrifying trend into a wider global context as well. Across the G7 group of countries, the UK still has the highest death toll per capita. The USA may have a clearly failing economic and political organisational structure, but can anyone in the UK really make the case that ours is any better. While the virus appears to be spreading through the USA faster than in any other G7 country, it is killing residents of the UK far faster.
One of the difficulties with this crisis is understanding the behaviour of the governments and their billionaire backers, in relation to the idea that governments serve the people, when these two governments are quite clearly failing the people.
As I have argued numerous times before, one of the key problems is the mainstream media insistence on framing and directing public scrutiny away from the shortcomings of their political overlords and their economic paymasters. When the billionaires and their political appointees put their privilege and status before the lives and well-being of the rest of us the people further down the ladder working in the media, public sector and businesses need to decide whose side you are on.