Covid

Here it was. At long last. Dominic Cummings in the flesh at the parliamentary select committee. He was dressed in the same immaculate white cotton shirt that he sported for his ‘agony in the garden’ appearance in Downing Street a year ago. But this time he wasn’t in the dock. He was like a school governor on prize-giving day, handing out gongs, and delivering the odd stiff rebuke to senior prefects. Matt Hancock got a dressing-down he won’t forget. He was accused of misleading officials and the public. ‘He should have been fired for at least 15 or 20 things,’ said Dom, ‘for lying to everyone on multiple occasions.’ Whoops. Time for Hancock to start work on his memoirs. Boris got off fairly lightly.

I am bemused by Boris Johnson’s optimism about the prospects for full unlocking on 21 June, based on the data he says he is seeing. Because the government’s own daily published data is showing worrying trends for the Indian variant. For example, there were 280 Covid infections reported for Bolton alone yesterday, 10 per cent of the UK total, and as you can see here the trend is steeply upward: That would be less worrying if there was also a steep rise in Covid testing in Bolton. But there isn't. As you can see here, the ratio of positive test results to tests carried out in Bolton – the positivity ratio – is holding fairly steady at about 7.5. It is obviously encouraging that there has not been a sharp associated rise in hospitalisations.

While the Indian variant continues to dominate the headlines, India itself seems to have dropped out of the news a bit. What is going on there?  It was reported yesterday that India notched up a record number of Covid deaths on Tuesday – 4525 – which indeed was the record of any country during the pandemic. However, that number needs to be put in the context of the country’s population of 1.3 billion. Grim as it is, it works out at 3.5 deaths per million. This is a fraction of the 27.6 deaths per million recorded in Britain on 20 January 2021. Tuesday’s figure is likely to be the high tide mark in India’s second wave of Covid Tuesday’s figure is also likely to be the high tide mark in India’s second wave of Covid.

Here are two Covid questions, thrown up by the rate at which the Indian variant is infecting parts of the UK. First, does it show that the traffic light system, which was designed to prevent the UK from importing new strains and variants from abroad, is unfit for purpose? The delay of one to two weeks in moving India from the amber to red category – which I’ve been banging on about for a month – is relevant, and looks like a serious government mistake. But isn't there a more fundamental flaw in the system? Ministers keep pointing out that with India in the amber category the UK should have been protected – because passengers from India were supposed to quarantine at home for 10 days and take tests on days two and eight.

That vast battalion of pinko pundits who confidently expected Boris Johnson to get a drubbing in last week’s elections has already reached a consensus on why it is that he did so well and Keir Starmer so badly. To summarise: the Prime Minister is a lucky general who benefited from a 'vaccine bounce'. He will fall straight back down to earth once this current crisis is over. The electorate will soon start concentrating on what really matters, like the cost of his curtains. In the long list of reasons why Labour keeps losing, its tendency to underestimate and misunderstand its opponents should figure large. Because the truth of the matter is that Johnson has not 'got lucky'.

There have been some truly dystopian spectacles during the past year-or-so of lockdowns. Cops using drones to spy on dog-walkers. Park benches sealed off with yellow tape. Curtain-twitchers dialling 999 after seeing the bloke next door go for a cheeky second jog. But this headline surely tops all of that: ‘Hugs will finally be legal again from next Monday.’ Read that again. We live in a country in which the government has accrued so much power that it now gets to tell us when we may hug each other. This should send a chill down the spines of all who care for liberty. To be honest, I wasn’t even aware hugging had been outlawed. I’ve been hugging people for months.