Carry the can…

It’s hard to know who to trust. When it comes to the papers, it’s not black and white.

Newspapers have owners, owners have views, axes to grind, points to make, who governs Britain and how. The printed media are party-loyal and parti-pris. Like vicars preaching to the choir.

Except…

Once in a while they break ranks. The Times did, last Saturday. I can’t link, it’s £walled. It’s the toff’s paper.

I trust I’ll not engage the wrath of Mr Murdock if I reveal that their love affair with BoJo is on the slide. It’s not hard to see why. The PM is so blatantly making a Cornona-Horlix, that continuing to support him will drag them into looking stupid, too.

They criticise; school open/close policy, care-homes and a blame-game with scientific advisors and his initial, tardy response.

They point out; probably, 40,000 people have died and the true number might be half that again, comparing us with Japan, with a population 50% higher, more elderly than us and only 734 deaths…

The Times also points out, the off-on, track and trace policy. They are not happy.

Neither is the other bastion of Toryism, the Telegraph.

They’re making some very serous allegations; tens of thousands of CV-19 tests have been double-counted;

‘… diagnostic tests which involve taking saliva and nasal samples from the same patient are being counted as two tests, not one.’

The DH+ and PHE were caught red-handed and confessed. Each confirmed the double-counting. I hope there are no NHS people implicated in this? Come the reckoning, they’ll have some explaining to do.

The Telegraph adds;

‘… [HMG]…was accused last month of including thousands of home tests which had been posted but not completed, in a bid to reach its target of 100,000 tests.’

Doesn’t this add up to an attempt to deceive, on an industrial scale?

Add to this, the Cummins and goings to Durham and government looks to be run by the selfish, the privileged, the hypocrites, and deniers.

When the Times and the Telegraph turn on the government I think it’s fair to say, there’s a problem with government.

In the beginning, we were all sideswiped by the ferocity of the virus and the draconian, global, response. We went along with BoJo. We had little in the public domain to work with, we didn’t know what-from-which.

Now, we’ve assimilated data, spoken to friends and colleagues around the world, compiled league-tables and made comparisons.

We know this has been handled badly. World class? Oh yes! In a class of it’s own; muddled, slow, confused and way behind the eight-ball.

The overriding imperative; we have to clear up the mess. The only way out is tracking, tracing, testing and repeat. We have to bust-a-gut to get this right.

There is no room for half-truths, exaggeration, lies, massaging numbers, fiddling and taking the public for mugs.

It’s the only plausible exit strategy but…

… we know, from Australia, on average, to track one case and their, subsequent, contacts, 64 tests are needed. With BoJo’s target of 10k a day, I make that nearly four and a half million tests will be needed, each week.

The management confusion defined by the horizontal relationships between PHE, the DH, NHSE/I, NHSX, Deloitte organising some testing and Serco (training the track and tracers), gives us;