Manage Deaths Instead of Managing Life: The UK Governments Failure to Protect Communities and Care Homes during the Covid-19 Pandemic

By Musa Khan Jalalzai

The older you are, the poorer you are and the more long term medical conditions you have, the more likely you are to be admitted to hospital or to die, if those conditions progress or if you get any new acute illness, including COVID-19. This is a covert manifesto for age discrimination and discrimination against the old, sick and disabled.......... Nearly 12 million people in the UK are over 65 and 3 million are over 80. That’s a lot of people to dismiss casually. These include our parents, uncles, aunts, and grandparents, our current or future selves. These are citizens who have contributed to society, families, workplaces and the economy. They are as entitled to protection and care as the rest of us. Unless the Covid-denialists and lockdown sceptics can serve up some useful solutions with their rhetoric, they need to stop the discriminatory dog whistles. I can guarantee if it were a member of their own family who got sick, they wouldn’t be saying “they have a pre-existing condition so let them die”.

David Oliver, an experienced NHS acute hospital consultant.

• Language: English
• Publisher: VIJ Books (India) Pty Ltd
• Release date: Apr 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9789390439799

Book preview

Introduction

Political, social and financial stratifications of the British state have been extraordinarily challenged by the offensive dynamics of Covid-19 with serious and unprecedented impacts on all aspects of our life, and the ways British state functioning and managing national security challenges. The Covid-19 exposed deficiency, shortcoming and Achilles-heel of the British state institutions that never experienced such a corrigible momentum of this mortiferous virus. While failing to defeat forces of the pandemic on all fronts, our policymakers rushed to adopt mass surveillance measures to control population, manage the virus, and maintain national security dynamics. The Boris Johnson government introduced measures around biosurveillance, censorship and misinformation, and passed laws disclosing and tracking our movements, managing communications and conversations, facial recognition surveillance and checkpoints for temperature tests. The fight against Covid-19 has now entered determining juncture as the state intelligence surveillance system is paying more attention to domestic security challenges instead of identifying pandemic patients.

All resources were diverted to counter-terrorism, and foreign intelligence surveillance through strategies, planes and mass surveillance under the umbrella of coronavirus. Infectious disease outbreaks clearly imposed terrible costs in terms of human suffering and mortality, as well as economic costs that threatened progress and stability in the United Kingdom, and that greatly out-distanced the costs of prevention and preparedness measures from privacy and private life to human rights. Every kind of human dignity has been signed-away to get data and watch lives of civilian population closely and remotely, those paying the price for the improvising designed national security strategies. National security is not just about protection from state and non-state actors, but also encompasses protection from crises such as emerging infectious diseases and other health outcomes that can threaten the nation’s economic vitality and its way of life. Crisis management approach of the government is unsystematic and disorganized due to the unpreparedness and lack of modernization of the state institutions to professionally respond to the persisting pandemic crisis.

WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in one of his opening addresses noted; Over the years, we have had many reports, reviews and recommendations all saying the same thing, the world is not prepared for a pandemic. COVID-19 has laid bare the truth when the time came, the world was still not ready. Health emergency preparedness is part of the larger vision of health for all. The recognition of this potential impact has led governments around the globe to accelerate their planning efforts to combat and prepare for the fight against the pandemic (Homeland Security Council report-2006). The UN Security Council Report (June 2020) has warned that terrorist groups might exploit engagement of law enforcement agencies in fighting against Covid-19 for their propaganda purposes: A wide variety of terrorist groups have already integrated COVID-19 into their narratives and propaganda, seeking to exploit current events for their own purposes and to use the pandemic to exploit divisions and weaknesses among their enemies". The report also noted that the COVID-19 also provided fuel for existing terrorist narratives, with tropes being repurposed to intensify hatred towards particular groups, resulting in racist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and anti-immigrant hate speech.

We have been reading countless reports in newspapers about the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of our national and domestic security, law enforcement mechanism, Snooper Charter Surveillance, and social, political, and colourful stratifications. Still, our think tanks never found any panacea to treat these deficiencies. All these imbalances needed a multibranched answer and reasonable nostrum. Political, social, and medical racism and discrimination have been evolving in different shape, while social distances between colours, behaviours at workplaces developed into a greater crisis that have deeply impacted political and social concordance in Britain. With greater reason, the worldwide spread of Covid-19 played havoc with major globalizing processes and immersion to our civilization. International travel has been in crisis since January 2020, while migration faces new challenges. The British economy is also in a hot spot because there are over one million job losses as the Covid-29 continues to affect lives and socialization. Each of us is now living in a world with a nearly untreatable virus—many bacterial and fungal infections that were previously considered treatable are no longer responding to the drugs designed to kill them.

As the Covid-19 tiredness or sleepiness began to set in, the UK experienced another wave of COVID-19 on 05 November 2020. This time, the government’s measures and strategies were designed to impose air and land surveillance to watch everyone by all means. Lockdowns caused more pain, loss of life and social and economic destruction. Lockdowns cause people’s mental health and weaken their financial position. The Centre for Mental Health estimated up to 10 million people in England needed either new or additional mental health support as a direct consequence of the crisis. The economic situation is not satisfactory, a culture of fraud, nepotism and cronyism developed gradually. Racism and extremism revolved in different shapes, while NHS shamelessly targeted black and Asian communities by taking back their right of treatment and hospitalization. Newspapers and journals published articles and news stories about the vulnerabilities of Asian and black communities flagrantly, and exhibited them as poor, source of Covid-19, weak, sick and vulnerable. These developments and social clefts threatened our lives and society.

Now, due to our negligence, the state is now in a profound, political, social and financial crisis. Security sector reforms halted while Great Reset continues to exacerbate in the speed of unemployment, economic and financial crisis. Since the onset of Covid-19, we have entered a twilight world. Our national security is under threat from all sides, our social stratification roots have emaciated, connectivity and togetherness have ended, and we look at each other with scorn and sneering, but we never realized that this way of thinking is dangerous. The current security measures and strategies of Boris Johnson’s government have failed to tackle even a minor national security crisis. His government’s under whelming relationship with social colours, and his personal approach to Brexit and other issues prompted exacerbation in isolation of the country in the international community. The British counter-extremism and counter-intelligence capabilities have broken. Law enforcement agencies face a multifaceted crisis, including the lack of confidence and common operational mechanism, and a lackluster technical approach to domestic security.

The case of the National Security Council (NSC) is not as different as it failed to prevent intelligence failure on many occasions, to that end; Britain has been subjected to a series of terrorist attacks for over 20 years. Analyst and researcher, Celia G. Parker noted in his recent papers failures of the National Security Council and its misuse by policymakers: The topic of intelligence failures is one of the most explored in the field of intelligence studies. In the UK context, since the misuse of intelligence relating to Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, intelligence failure has also become a topic of media interest, with commentators seizing upon opportunities to criticise governments and the security apparatus whenever something appears to have gone awry with regards to national security.

Policy maker’s misuse of NSC and its own underwhelming performance during civil wars in Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq—along with the British military’s involvement in those conflicts—contributed to the deterioration of domestic stability. The National Security Council also failed to tackle the crisis of Covid-19. The above-cited weak approaches painted a transmogrified picture of the National Security Council (NSC) and its stakeholders. Analyst and researcher, Celia G. Parker in his paper, highlighted the weak performance of the National Security Council with respect to national security and prevention of intelligence failure. He also noted the NSC misuse by policymakers and political stakeholders in yesteryears and during the UK war against Covid-19:

A more recent episode which provides evidence about the impact of the NSC system on the use of intelligence by policymakers was the government’s response to the poisoning of former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal in 2018. The UK’s response to this incident was very effective in its holistic nature, which addressed not just piecing together what had happened, but also how to deal with the public health aspect and how to respond internationally. No doubt intelligence featured heavily in the discussions at the NSC about this incident, for which the government’s Fusion Doctrine was put to the test, and responded effectively……..The UK’s NSC is neither accountable, nor does it have a legislative basis. Although this does not have a direct impact on the likelihood of intelligence failures by policymakers, it is important to consider whose hands intelligence failures would be placed with a system that has neither a specific legal basis nor is accountable to an oversight body. As a result, George Bangham and Sarang Shah have advocated placing the NSC on a statutory footing by including its existence as an amendment to the 1994 Intelligence Services Act. Moreover, they suggest it should be regulated by the ISC. However, the NSC would need to evolve into a permanent institution in order for these changes to be made. In fact, the NSC has been significantly underused in the first half of 2020, which the government has blamed on the COVID-19 pandemic. However, considering it barely met since the December 2019 general election, there have been media reports that it is being made ‘deliberately redundant’. As argued by Devanny, the non-use of the NSC under Johnson is particularly concerning as the COVID-19 pandemic ‘has made [national security] issues more difficult to manage, with uncertain economic, geopolitical and humanitarian consequences that will reshape the international security environment in which the UK must operate, and in which hostile state actors and non-state actors will look to exploit opportunities.

As the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill 2019-2021 generated debates in domestic and international forums, analyst and expert Joanna Dawson noted that the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill 2019-2021 would ‘introduce power in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 to authorise conduct by officials and agents of the security and intelligence services, law enforcement, and certain other public authorities, which would otherwise constitute criminality. Writer and analyst Chris Sweeney (11 May 2020) argued that the arrogance of Government officials was fracturing the UK into sovereign states and accelerating the break-up of the union. Mr. Chris Sweeney deeply highlighted weaknesses and frustration of the Johnson administration in his recent paper. The Amnesty International report also uncovered serious violations of human rights in NHS hospitals and Coronavirus’s treatment centres where patients were treated poorly. The report also elucidated cases of racism, discrimination, denial of treatment and forcing the patient to go to care homes.

In heated Commons exchanges, member of Labour party Zarah Sultana called for a strategy covering all government departments to tackle underlying inequalities and systemic injustice, adding that Covid-19 did not discriminate but the system in which it was spreading does. Muslim doctors were noted as being among the first to have died on the COVID-19 frontline. Dr Abdul Mabdud Choudhry, who died after contracting the Coronavirus, wrote a Facebook post detailing the lack of PPE just five days before his death. Tasnim Nazeer (18 May 2020), in her critical analysis noted signs of discrimination in health services and warned that the disproportionate number of black and ethnic minority health workers dying from COVID-19. However, Byline Times also reported a shocking 97% of Britain’s medical staff died from COVID-19 were from BAME backgrounds

Musa Khan Jalalzai

2021 London

Chapter 1

Manage Deaths Instead of Managing Life: the UK Government’s Failure to Protect Communities and Care Homes during the Covid-19 Pandemic

National Security in its conventional mode is corresponding to the protection of territorial integrity and sovereignty of a modern state. During the proliferation of Covid-19, the government declared publicly plans to manage the Integrated Security, Defence and Foreign Policy Review (ISDFPR) to respond to emerging threats with strength and spring. With greater reason, the worldwide spread of Covid-19 played havoc with major globalizing processes, and immersion our civilization with all its aggrandizement and power. International travel has been in crisis since January 2020, while immigration faced new challenges. British economy is in a hot spot due to over one million job losses. Each of us is now living in a world of the untreatable virus—many bacterial and fungal infections that were previously considered treatable are no longer responding to the drugs designed to kill them. There have been lockdown, partial lockdown, or reduced services of patients and day-care facilities, with outpatients contacts reduced in some places.

Hospitals played their own role by purveying treatment to non-Covid-19 patients as well. On family level, the Covid-19 forced reorganization of life. Domestic violence and sexualized violence against children has been on the rise since March 2020. As the Covid-19 tiredness or sleepiness began to set in, the UK was experiencing another wave of COVID-19 on 05 November 2020. This time, the government’s measures and strategies were designed to effectively control viruses by imposing air and land surveillance to watch everyone by all means. Lockdowns caused more pain, mislaying of life, social and economic destruction. Lockdowns wreak havoc with people’s mental health; weaken their financial position and family life. The Centre for Mental Health estimated up to 10 million people in England needed either new or additional mental health support as a direct consequence of the crisis. The economic situation was not satisfactory, a culture of fraud, nepotism and cronyism developed gradually. Racism and extremism revolved in different shapes, while NHS shamelessly targeted black and Asian communities by taking back their right of treatment and hospitalization.

Newspapers and journals published articles and stories about the vulnerabilities of Asian and black communities flagrantly and profiled them as poor, weak, sick and source of the virus. Director of Health Jo Bibby, Grace Everest, and Isabel Abbs (The Health Foundation-Will COVID-19 be a watershed moment for health inequalities? 07 May 2020) in their analysis noted events viewed through the lens of inequalities to exhibit that Asians and Blacks were at much higher risk of catching and dying from the virus than whites. They also elucidated factors such as age, gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic deprivation known to be important. Critically, these factors combined in complex ways to put some people at much greater risk:

There are so many separate, interconnected and constantly changing elements that it may never be possible to see the full picture. But one thing is certain, unless these current events are viewed through the lens of inequalities, we risk ending up in a place of even greater injustice than where we started. The global pandemic, and the wider governmental and societal response, is certainly bringing health inequalities into sharp focus. And it has been apparent from the early stages of the pandemic that some groups are at much higher risk of catching and dying from the virus than others. Factors such as age, gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic deprivation are all known to be important. Critically, these factors combine in complex ways to put some people at much greater risk. In addition, the measures taken to control the spread of the virus are having unequal socioeconomic impacts, which are likely to deepen health inequalities in the long term.¹

Statements of Ministers and newspapers caused consternation. People became frustrated and demanded an immediate solution to the structural problem they were very much a part of. Newspapers criticism pointed to the flawed system itself (Hiroyuki Hamada, Global Research, October 23, 2020) which in turn resonated as a criticism against the self. As we undergo flawed Covid-19 lockdown measures, the rich and powerful were showered with bailouts, while the rest of middle class endured neoliberal restructuring—losing wages, losing workers’ rights, losing legal rights and losing human rights.² Big Brother Watch, a UK based civil liberties and privacy campaigning organisation, fighting for a free future, and is the guardian of privacy and defends freedoms at this time of enormous change in its recent research report (Emergency Powers & Civil Liberties Report, May 2020), highlighted legal and statutory developments, public health act 1984, which enforced lockdown restrictions and Health Protection Regulations-2020 made in England, Wales and Scotland and in Northern Ireland on 28 March 2020, and criticised lockdown regulations and argued these were unclear to give way for national debate:

Two months ago, a series of statutory instruments were made under the Public Health Act 1984 to enforce the lockdown restrictions. These are the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Regulations 2020 made in England, Wales and Scotland respectively on 26th March 2020 and in Northern Ireland on 28th March 2020. They remain in place but have been significantly amended. On 1st April, the Regulations for Scotland were approved by the Scottish parliament. On 21 April, the Regulations for Northern Ireland were approved by the Northern Ireland Assembly. On 29 April; the Regulations were approved by the Welsh Assembly. Astonishingly, the original Regulations for England were approved by Parliament seven weeks after being made by Government, long after the peak of the virus, on 14 May. The Regulations received a two-hour debate in the House of Commons on 4th May and a one and a half-hour debate in the House of Lords on 12th May. The Regulations have been so unclear as to give way for a national debate as to whether the Prime Minister’s chief advisor Dominic Cummings himself broke the law by taking a 500 mile round trip from London to Durham and a day trip to Barnard Castle. Whatever one’s view of the situation, it is deeply unsatisfactory that the lockdown Regulations are open to such confusion. The Joint Committee on Human Rights urged the Government to introduce a method of making regulations which allows for more timely and stringent Parliamentary scrutiny which is proportionate to the significant restrictions on human rights which the regulations impose. On 12th May the Secretary of State made a significant Amendment to the Regulations, easing the lockdown in England without any parliamentary scrutiny on the basis of unjustified urgency. The introductory text to the Amendment states, by reason of urgency, it is necessary to make this instrument without a draft having been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament." This is patently false as Parliament was sitting to review the original Regulations on the very same day the Amendment was made.³

The Covid-19 hydra tested the resolve and strength of the UK’s Asian and Black Communities amidst shameless propaganda of British newspapers about their vulnerability against the Covid-19, but all strategies and plans failed to terrify them. In a report, Public Health England (PHE) acknowledged that the disproportionate effect the pandemic has had on black, Asian and minority ethnic (Bame) people, including making us more likely to become critically ill and to die. BBC (02 June 2020) quoted two reports which noted the vulnerability of Black people-almost four times more likely to die of Covid-19, according to the Office of National Statistics, while Asians were up to twice as likely to die, but they failed to profile them as a source of virus spread. As the crisis thrust British society into unfamiliar contexts, from panic to social distancing and restrictive state rules, it pitted individual interests against the groups and scepticism against trust. Tej Parikh, (Asia Times, 15 June 2020) highlights several aspects of the Covid-19 and the failed approach of the British government:

Elements of the test, trace and contain trifecta have been present in most measures to quash infections. Yet national approaches, and outcomes, have been far from uniform. Differences in climate, population density, demography, healthcare and political competence, as well as varying cultural norms, values and customs, have prevented governments and citizens across the world from reacting in lockstep to the outbreak. For quarantining and social distancing, behaviour around compliance has been key. Many expect tough autocratic states to have an upper hand in limiting population movement, with stricter policing and deterrents. Recent research from Oxford University using Google Map movement data during lockdowns finds they have actually been less effective in reducing mobility. China with its highly efficient state, may be an exception, but repression and poor governance in authoritarian states generally eviscerate the social ties needed for cooperation. Democracies like Germany and South Korea, by contrast, have drawn on trust, built up partially through a legacy of delivering high-quality public services, to support cooperation. Yet, liberal societies have themselves exhibited varying levels of adherence to social distancing measures. Trust in government is on the decline in many, and the potential for asymptomatic carriers to spread infection places greater emphasis on individuals operating as if they have contracted the virus. As such, democracies with more group-orientated values tend to be more effective at containment according to the Oxford study. The UK and U.S have in particular faced challenges in enforcing lockdowns. In late March, mobility data from Citymapper showed Brits to be among the most active, in terms of journeys by foot and public transport, compared to other European nations. Police officers in the UK have equally been confused by the number of people breaching distancing measures. Meanwhile, the US has seen notable resistance to lockdowns, with mass protests in some quarters.⁴

On 30 January 2019, Covid-19 was declared a public health emergency by the World Health Organization. The infection rate and death toll was substantial by the end of October 2020. This raised questions about the negative role both labour leaders and governments in power played in amplifying politicization and polarization of Covid-19. Attempting to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on societal inequalities was like looking through a kaleidoscope. The Transnational Institute (TNI) (17 June 2020) in its report noted aspects of militarisation of Covid-19, and the use of military force to defeat the lethality of pandemic. It meant the government was mistrustful of the UK police force. In the context of