With one of the highest Coronavirus death rates in the world, the UK has proven itself to be exceptional. But its problems go beyond shallow notions of complacency and are rooted in deep-seated structural and cultural oppression, writes Hardeep Matharu
Announcing that face coverings will become compulsory on public transport in England later this month, Grant Shapps yesterday reassured the public that the measure was not a draconian one but the Government “doing what many other countries have asked transport users to do” to help stop the spread of the Coronavirus.
While masks in public were made compulsory in more than 50 countries around the world – including Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Pakistan and Argentina – the UK Government debated and waited and it is unclear why. Shapps said that “the evidence suggests that wearing face coverings offers some, albeit limited, protection against the spread of the virus”, acknowledging that – up until now – the Government has been willing to put its libertarian instincts above the risk to life.
For all the talk of ‘we’ve followed the science at every step’, the UK Government is now doing what many other countries cottoned on to much earlier. Why the delay?
It is a question at the heart of the UK Government’s entire approach to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the Coronavirus was spreading through the country in February and March – when horses raced, people danced at concerts and bars and restaurants carried on as normal – the Prime Minister was telling the public to wash their hands and sing Happy Birthday, while also declaring that he was shaking hands with those who had the disease. People continued to pack out the Underground in London, the country’s virus epicentre. It was only on 23 March that England went into lockdown – seven weeks after a curious speech by the Prime Minister discussing post-Brexit trade.
In it, he proclaimed that “when there is a risk that new diseases such as Coronavirus will trigger a panic and a desire for market segregation that go beyond what is medically rational to the point of doing real and unnecessary economic damage, then at that moment humanity needs some government somewhere that is willing at least to make the case powerfully for freedom of exchange.” He suggested that the UK would be the country “ready to take off its Clark Kent spectacles and leap into the phone booth and emerge with its cloak flowing as the supercharged champion”.
Speaking to Channel 4’s Dispatches this week, former Conservative MP Dr Phillip Lee said: “Listen to that Clark Kent and Superman speech, it is this ‘Britain’s going to be different’, it is that sort of English exceptionalism BS… no, an infectious disease is an infectious disease.”
Throughout the pandemic, the UK Government’s approach seems to have been characterised by an exceptionalism – an approach reflected in the catastrophic cost to human life. Along with the US, it has one of the highest COVID-19 death tolls in the world. On 3 May, there were more COVID-19 related deaths in the UK (359) with a population of 66 million, than in all of the EU (314) with a population of 446 million.
Despite the urgent need to look reality in the eye, leaders in Westminster have carried on with a delusional belief that this country is unlike any other in the world and that its people have unique capabilities to ride out any storm – even a deadly virus which cannot be tackled with nationalist, populist propaganda, talk of war and Empire, and a derision of facts and prioritising of instinct, of which Johnson and his Brexiter MPs are so beloved.
Not content with a late lockdown, the Government has now decided to ease social distancing measures even though the rate of transmission of the disease is still close to one. With mass testing inexplicably abandoned early on, a national ‘track and trace’ system will not be in place until the end of this month. And deep questions remain about the time lost to following a dangerous ‘herd immunity’ plan – one which Johnson told the Italian Prime Minister in mid-March was his aim, it has this week emerged.
As the UK’s COVID-19 death rate has climbed, others looking on from abroad have spotted this English complacency, elitism and myopia, even if those living here cannot see it themselves.
“Complacent exceptionalism” and the notion that “what was happening in Asia wouldn’t hurt us” was a factor in why the UK didn’t respond quickly enough, New Zealand epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker told a Byline Times event last month. Former WHO director Professor Anthony Costello agreed and said that the UK Government had suffered from “hubris” and failed to get a grip on the deadly disease because it believed it was “untouchable”.
In an article titled ‘Biggest Failure in a Generation’: Where Did Britain Go Wrong?’ in the Sydney Morning Herald, former Australian High Commissioner to Britain Mike Rann said of the UK’s COVID-19 response that “the earliest stages were handled negligently. A shambles of mixed messaging, poor organisation and a complacent attitude that what was happening in Italy wouldn’t happen here”.
For Antonello Guerrera, UK correspondent for Italy’s La Repubblica, “the way the world is looking at the UK is not the way the UK is looking at itself. Despite becoming the worst-hit country in Europe, Boris Johnson is enjoying the peak of his popularity curve… When a lockdown was eventually enforced in the UK, many Italians I spoke to couldn’t understand why we in Britain were allowed to jog, go for a walk or simply leave home without showing papers to the police. ‘Yo