We Don't Need No Education!

Devi Sridhar essentially poses the question 'What has the UK learned from the Covid19 pandemic?'. The short answer appears to be 'Not a great deal' (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/13/as-covid-deaths-in-the-uk-surpass-the-grim-milestone-of-200000-what-have-we-learned). At the start of the pandemic, the government's Chief Scientific Adviser opined that the country would have done well, if it kept its total deaths to under 20,000. Twenty thousand is the average annual UK number of deaths, from seasonal influenza! This week, the UK's Covid19 death toll exceeded 200,000. Covid19 turned out to be nothing like seasonal influenza! There has been lots of government boasting about 'Getting the big calls, about the pandemic, right'. Sridhar notes that the UK's PM effectively dismissed Covid19 as being 'only' a killer of the over-80s. This virus clearly also kills younger people. We are certainly, having to learn to live with Covid19! It turns out, however, that living with this virus, is like sharing a house with a psychopathic lodger. Many people are destined to get repeated infections by the viral variants. The UK actually didn't do at all well in the early stages Covid19 pandemic. Things were somewhat rescued by the early development of vaccines (which are now losing their power to prevent infections). Sridhar wonders why government are not getting on with giving boosters to the over-50's. Nothing in the UK responses, suggests that government has learned much. The country seems unlikely to do any better, if (when?) a new pandemic hits.