Operation Save Christmas, part 2

Last year, Johnson went against medical advice to partially unlock and loosen restrictions for Christmas. This created a surge in January and February of new infections, hospitalisations and deaths that cost 30,000 extra lives.

So, there is quite some cost to "save Christmas".

The message from Number 10 is the same this year: carry on and enjoy Christmas.

That is the message in today Daily Mail.

On top of that, there is the demand now that all adults over 30 years old be given their booster by the end of January. This is quite the task too.

This will mean that the NHS across all its facilities will have to focus on this rather than anything else; less cancer treatment, monitoring and preventitive actions which will have long term effects on excess deaths, which was always going to happen, and is a function of a pandemic.

Had the Conservative Governments since 2010 not cut NHS spending, stopped nursing bursaries, made it clear that EU workers were not welcome to work here, and the privatisation by stealth, then maybe, probably, the UK would have been in a better position to tackle COVID. On top of that, incorporating the Lessons Learned from Operation Phoenix and other drills and practices that showed gaps.

When the Government was more focussed on grifting for themselves, their friends and backers rather than on the only talks they should have been, public health, no wonder we are here.

No lessons learned activ ities have been undertaken after each of the three previous waves, so we will blunder on, and more and more people will die before their time.