How Britain Became the First Country in the World to Surrender to Covid

This is What it Means to Be the Dumbest Country in the World

Umair Haque

You might have long thought America — or your country — was the dumbest in the world. Ah, my friend. Here’s a situation so surreal that it’s difficult to put into words. Nevertheless, let me be foolhardy enough to try.

See that chart above? One country sticks out like a sore thumb. That’s poor, stupid, beleaguered Britain. In every other rich country, and plenty of poor ones, Covid cases are falling thanks to vaccines, lockdowns, a hard, hard year and some of fighting a deadly pandemic.

But Britain? It’s in the middle of an explosive new wave. Of a deadly new variant. And this is the moment…wait for it…that Boris Johnson’s government has decided to lift all restrictions in the name of freedom.

Did you get that? Yes, you read that right. If your brain is hurting, don’t worry mine is too, as are the brains of what sane and thoughtful few Brits are left on what’s fast coming to be called Plague Island. So let me say it again.

Britain’s government is lifting all its restrictions and precautions…just as a dangerous new wave of Covid is exploding.

That’s the greatest abdication of responsibility by a government since the last World War, since Covid is the greatest crisis since the World War. And the British government is doing exactly what it appears to be doing: surrendering to Covid.

That’s a level of human folly that’s earth-shaking. It’s stuff that would make Aeschylus weep and Orwell laugh. What kind of goddamned nation of idiots decides to lift all restrictions and precautions just as a…

Let me give you an example of what “lifting all restrictions and precautions” means. No more masks. No more social distancing. No more closings and cancellations. No more anything. Life is just to return to normal…because apparently the way you beat a pandemic is by pretending it doesn’t exist anymore. That kind of folly is par for the course for conservative governments — but this level of stupidity is truly breathtaking, because this decision can never be undone. I’ll come back to that: for now, Britain will have no Covid restrictions and precautions in just a few days.

But now is an especially crucial time in Britain. It’s the moment a Delta wave of Covid is exploding. It’s the critical window when a few short days or weeks could stop this variant for good. instead, Britain’s throwing its arms wide open…to embrace a deadly virus. It doesn’t take a genius to see that doubling times — already at a week — will increase, the exponent of exponential growth accelerating.

Boris Johnson himself predicts 50,000 cases a day in two weeks. How many is that? In America, by contrast, there were just 4,000 cases on July 4th. But America’s four and a half times the population of the UK. 50,000 cases per day? That means that on a per capita basis, the UK will have about 50 times the number of Covid cases America does.

LEGGI TUTTO https://eand.co/how-britain-became-the-first-country-in-the-world-to-surrender-to-covid-e0d64c0a5d3f