We could be heading for a de facto identity card

Robert Henderson

The government has begun an experiment on the Isle of Wight with an app which tracks  those who have or have had the coronavirus. If successful it will be rolled out UK wide.

The app will trace your movements which is worrying enough, but it will also give a clue to who you are meeting and when and where the meetings take place.

The app  has also already be shown to be insecure.

If  the app goes nationwide an even  greater worry arises, namely, that it could become all too easily a de facto identity card with at first the population being divided in two, between those who load  the app having the de facto  ID cards being allowed to move more freely about the country and those without the  app being restricted by the present lockdown restrictions or even something more  restrictive. This of course would give a great incentive to download the app.

The next likely step would be to make using the app compulsory unless people are literally confined to their homes permanently.

Those with the app will have the most potent of identitycards, not only one which says who you are , but one which tells where you have been and who you may have met. A police state dream.

Worryingly, The Health Secretary Mike Hancock has launched the app with the claim that it is everyone’s duty to use the app.

The app is not the only worrying government development , viz:

. ” The Coronavirus Act has given the Government powers that are without precedent in peacetime, including the authority to close any building. The lesser known Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations, which are the legal basis for the lockdown, are even more draconian. Their principal stipulations are that “no person may participate in a gathering in a public place of more than two people” and “no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse”. The list of “reasonable excuses” is short. ” (See below for full article)

All of this needs to be stamped on now because  virtually all the apparatus for a police state  has been given statutory force  by the Government.

Apart from the police state aspects of the technology the impracticality of the system strikes me, vz:

You download the app and go out.

Some hours later the app notifies you that have been in the proximity of someone who has the virus symptoms.

You  return home and  stay isolated for 14 days.

On the 15th day you go out .

A few hours later your  app notifies you that you have been near to someone with the virus symptoms.

You  remain home and stay isolated for another 14 days.

On the 15th day you leave your home.

You have barely walked a  few hundred yards and your app tells  you are in the vicinity of someone with the virus symptoms.

You return home to be isolated for another 14 days…

Coronavirus and the herd immunity ploy

Robert Henderson

The herd immunity ploy was obviously the most efficient  and, arguably in the long run,    the most humane course of action  because the  number of deaths and misery, both physical and psychological, may well exceed those from the present course of action.  For example, what happens with the present ploy  if  the situation has not changed after  16 weeks locked down ? Does the government keep on with lockdown interminably? Clearly that could not happen because there is a limit to what even a country with a great borrowing record  like the UK  can actually borrow. Moreover,  can anyone honestly believe that  to to keep people locked away for 4 months, 6 months and so on is practically possible? As it is we are are asking people at present to undergo a form of psychological torture. Imagine how extreme circumstances can be, for example, a family of 3 or four living in one room in a B and B.  It is inhuman.

With herd immunity the actuality might be very painful  in the short term but the experience of the likes of Sweden suggests is no worse in terms of death and much better in terms of not subjecting the population to great privation and  keeping the economy going.

There is also  a serious question over the number of which deaths can be wholly or solely attributed to the coronavisrus, for  example, there are suggestions that many of the deaths which are going into the daily count are not  due to coronavirus being the primary cause but rather acting as the last straw which broke the camel’s back.

To get a clear picture of what is happening we need answers to these questions for every claimed coronavisrus death:

1. How old was the patient?

2. What was the cause of death given on the death certificate?

3. What other illnesses and disabilities did the patient have?

4. What treatment did the patient receive in the 24 hours prior to their death?

5. Where did they die, for example, in hospital  or outside of hospital?

6. Had the patient stated that they did not wish to be resuscitated?

Hospital capacity is what matters at the moment

Robert Henderson

Over the Easter weekend the Nightingale Hospital in the  converted Excel conference and events centre  only had 19 patients when it has  available 500 beds now with the potential to scale up to 4000 to accommodate corolavirus patients.  The small number of patients  caused surprise and comment.

The fact that the Nightingale Hospital is  not used more extensively is irrelevant at the moment. The important thing is the Government has done the  right thing by making sure the  capacity is there if the virus  (or indeed any other virus)  becomes more demanding of patients in hospital beds.  There is also the possibility that a second wave of the virus will hit us.

Over capacity is what we need not under capacity. This is where British governments*from Cameron and May’s  governments  (and arguably Johnson’s) were at fault because they   ran down the in patient capacity so there was very little give in the system when demand rose.  Not only that but very little effort appears to have been made generally to plan for a novel virus attack – no adequate  supplies of protective equipment, no  equipment to test for the virus  and a lack of  equipment to aid sufferers , in particular ventilators and oxygen.  There are also reports coming through of drugs needed to treat and palliate patients are running short.

For the future all of these shortages must not be allowed to exist.

The other  general scandal is the  fact that UK is so dependent on  imports for staff, equipment and medicine.   Government must train sufficient medical staff  drawn from our own population and ensure that the UK can be self-sufficient in not only the goods required to tackle viruses but in drugs and  medical equipment. No more must the madness of the laissez faire  fantasy of  globalism be allowed to to drive public policy in the UK.

*The Blair and Brown can also be said to have indirectly contributed to the decline of the NHS over the past ten years because of the many PFI’s schemes they left behind which were ruinously expensive and constrained   government ‘s routine spending on the NHS  for years after the  crash of 2008. Instead the money went on PFI contracts.

Blair and Brown could also be blamed indirectly because  in the years leading up to  the 2008 crash they ramped up the UKL national debt massively – see https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/labour-re-writes-the-past-their-economic-management/