There are thousands and thousands of letters, more than 100,000, that have been exchanged between English politicians, doctors, professionals, government and health officials, during the pandemic that reveal some of the less happy incidents during the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, some of them have been revealed by the British newspaper The Telegraph.
Messages were exchanged in WhatsApp groups, which many politicians, including then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, used to question doctors and epidemiologists about their doubts about what they should do to combat the pandemic, at a time when the doubts were more than that. certainty.
The letters released in the so-called “Ficheiros do Confinamento” (“Lockdown Files” case, in English) were obtained by journalist Isabel Oakeshott, who gained access to them as she helped the former health secretary write a work about the difficulties of the government during the most severe period of the pandemic in the UK . Ms. English maintains that her disclosure is a “public service,” because English “deserves to know” why the CEO made some decisions.
One case revealed that Boris Johnson compared the risk of contracting Covid-19 in the elderly with going down stairs, at the time confinement cases were assessed or whether potential herd immunity was ‘at risk’.
We don’t know if immunity to Covid-19 lasts long enough to reach herd immunity. We have a long way to go before we reach herd immunity. More importantly, the article does not explain the fundamental problem of how to prevent young people from eventually passing the infection on to the oldest and sickest,” notes epidemiologist Chris Whitty who has advised the government, on suspicion posed by Boris Johnson, who told him in reply that he had Doubts about maintaining more severe confinement for the elderly.
“I have a feeling you’ve already told me that and I apologise. But there is merit to the idea of offering people over 65 a choice. Anyone over a certain age should be able to live two lives. Either you protect yourself and avoid all potentially infectious environments, or you can Mixing with others. For anyone over the age of 65, the risk of dying from Covid-19 is probably as high as the risk of falling from stairs. And we do not prohibit older people from using stairs.” Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson responded.
Other messages that have been issued that are causing controversy concern measures that will be applied in homes, to protect older and more vulnerable to severe forms of Covid-19. After progress and setbacks with regard to home screening, specifically testing of those who came from hospitals, then Health Secretary Matt Hancock decided to scrap mandatory home testing of all those who had potential contact with the virus or had been infected.
“Tell me if I’m wrong: but I would prefer the obligation to test and isolate everyone who goes home from the hospital. I don’t think the obligation on everyone adds anything, it just muddies the waters,” he wrote. Months later, in August 2020, he withdrew the decision and applied the test to both entered homes.
On the subject of nursing homes, the letters also reveal disagreements between politicians over the rules to be applied in nursing homes, which some consider “inhuman”, and which Britons have not been able to meet their relatives for several months, with visits banned. March 2020.
Helen Whateley, former Secretary of State for Social Assistance, wrote in October that “to prevent husbands from seeing their wives simply because they have been living in homes for months and months is inhuman”, going against what the Minister for Health believes. With the second reservation arriving in November, the rules have changed, but homes are now free to set a visitation schedule, and some have chosen to keep the rules as strict as possible. What to ship back:
“I’m getting good news about home vaccination. I think I already said, we have to be prepared about the visitation policy [a lares]given that there is a risk of loss of life, with the elderly giving up life,” he wrote, lamenting the situation.
Warnings and admonitions did not follow Matt Hancock, who postponed the case until a later date. Large-scale home visits were only allowed in July 2021.
As more letters are revealed, scandal and rebellion grow among the English, but the former rulers have already come to try to water the boil.
Lord Bethel, who was a member of the Health and Social Department of the Department of Health, noted that “we must not forget that we know very little about this disease”.
“In fact, there was an idea at one point that we should ask people to exterminate all cats in the UK. Can you imagine what would have happened if we had done that?”, he revealed in an interview with Channel 4.
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