LONDON (Bywire News) - Never one to do things by halves, I’m currently recovering from COVID… for the third time. I was isolated for the best part of a week because I’m classed as CEV (clinically extremely vulnerable). Even before this, I was exhausted most of the time because of the first two infections.
It feels like every time I contract Covid, the recovery period gets longer. I’m coughing constantly. My body is tired.
Is this what life is going to be like from now on? Whenever I go to a social event — which most of my work is based around — I risk being infected. Then I lose a week, and my body takes another kicking.
Now the government, in all their wisdom, has decided to scrap free lateral flow tests in England, from April 1st.
Make no mistake, this is a government completely washing its hands of a highly infectious disease in order to placate its base, and with local elections just around the corner — the cynic in me thinks it couldn’t have been timed more perfectly. We are being pushed off a Covid cliff edge when infections are at an all-time high.
For the week ending 19 March, the BBC reported, that about one in every 16 people were infected, as the Omicron variant BA.2 continued to spread. That's just under 4.3 million people, up from 3.3 million the week before. Rates were up in England and Wales, and Scotland reached a new high.
For the week ending 25 March, according to the UK Health Security Agency, there were 950 COVID-19 deaths.
Are those the figures of a country that should be abandoning widespread testing and mask-wearing? Absolutely not.
As with practically everything this government does, this scrapping of free tests will adversely affect the poor and vulnerable more than anyone else. Those who can afford to shell out for Covid tests are not on the tills in Tesco coming into contact with hundreds of people a day, they’re tucked away in offices or still working from home. Remember when frontline service workers were the heroes of the pandemic? I recall queuing up outside supermarkets in those early dark days when we were advised to only venture out for essentials, but some were working all day or night to keep us fed.
This is how the government is repaying those heroes, by essentially saying: We know rates are still mega high, but we’re not prepared to cough up for tests anymore even though the pandemic illustrated how essential you are, so off you pop to work and put your life at risk for minimum wage.
If Fishy Rishi can magic away billions in crony Covid contracts, he can find money to maintain free testing, at the very least for those who work in customer-facing roles, and low-income workers.
At a time when the cost of living is the highest the country has experienced in modern times, and energy bills are skyrocketing to a degree that people are thinking twice before igniting the cooker to make dinner — the last thing we all need is the constant anxiety of having to put more money aside for tests, or going without and repeatedly rolling the dice which risks infecting others.
What’s even more galling is the absence of a credible opposition when one is desperately needed in order to push back against these relentless attacks on the poor.
Starmer and Reeves are seemingly too concerned with their Red Wall optics.
They really ought to put down the pint of bitter and union flag for a second and fight our corner, like the Labour Party is supposed to.
During my latest spell of Covid, a doctor rang me to arrange for the latest antivirals to be sent to my home. Over the years I’ve spoken to more doctors than I can remember, but this time there was an exasperation that I’ve never heard before when I mentioned the government’s plan to drop free testing and all mitigations. A sentiment of sheer disbelief.
Boris Johnson, closing your eyes to Covid is not going to make it magically go away. You don’t get to decide that. Covid infections are raging through the population. Scrapping free testing will be a disaster. More people will needlessly die because of your politically-driven actions. Open your eyes and for once in your life, do the right thing.
(Writing by Jason Reid, editing by Klaudia Fior)