Has the Government’s attitude to coronavirus really changed?
‘Colour me sceptical’
On BBC Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday morning, Sajid Javid, the Secretary of State for Health, revealed that the Government estimated there were ‘some seven million people that did not come forward to the NHS to be helped with things like cancer, with heart disease’. He then asked us to ‘think about the deaths that have been sadly caused by that’.
Kate Andrews, Economics Editor at The Spectator, reported this news by highlighting the difference between the present Health Secretary and his predecessor in sharing such figures. She wrote that it was ‘another stark contrast between’ the two beyond ‘their attitudes towards risk’.
Perhaps, but colour me sceptical.
During the pandemic, the Government marshalled its behavioural scientists, marketing and PR teams, scientific advisors and monopoly on much of the pertinent data to build a case for its policy of mitigating the deaths caused by Covid through restrictions of personal freedoms. Now, it allegedly wishes to reopen the country.
However, there is already pushback against this decision from the Labour Party, in the pages of The Guardian, and in parts of the scientific community, including those who are members of Sage.
Is it too much of a stretch to imagine that its newfound willingness to be open about the effects of last year’s Covid policies is less about Sajid Javid’s convictions and ‘attitude towards risk’, and more a case of using the same old propaganda techniques to build support for the new Government position?
