Four years ago

Today, four years ago, I picked up a hire car to drive to North Wales for an audit.

Coronavirus, as COVID 19 was called back then, was about to explode. I guessed things were going to change soon, but I had no idea how much the change was going to be and for how long it would last.

Of course, COVID is still here, infecting people, causing more an more to catch long COVID. No one, let alone the Government is talking about this, or doing anthing about it, instead thePrime Minister likes to label thelong-term sick as workshy, and on benefits. Of course, by far the largest group on benefits are the low paid, as business is only too happy for the taxpayer to top up their employee's wages.

Of course, as more and more people catch long COVID, become unable to work, the cost of their care will increase and the strain it puts on the NHS and nation will also increase.

The country could have avoided this, with masking and good air fltration in schools and offices, but that would be too easy.

By the 13th March 2020, all sport had been cnacelled, as had entertainment, but pubs and bars would remain open to the 23rd, when it was too late, infection rates were doubling every few days, delays costs lives, and in the end far more money.

Not that you'd know that now as the right try to paint the response to COVID as too extreme and costly. At the most basic point, we were trying to protect the most vunnerable, but it turns out their lives are not worth the effort.

Damn them. Damn them all.

Maybe it's because I deal in data and trends that once the infection, hospitalisation and deth rates from Italy were know, to extrapolate them to the US and UK and you could see what was coming.

That the Goverment and even the Health Minister did not see it, or thought they had months to prepare, shows how little attention they were paying to the situation in Italy and what the WHO was saying.

The lessons learned, but the nation and te in excess of 200,000 deaths will be forgotten, and the next pandemic, and there will be one, will be worse.