Fifteen or 16 months after SARS-Cov-2 started to spread widely in Britain, the government is looking at public provision of quarantine accommodation for people who would otherwise be trying to “self-isolate” in crowded housing.
It still hasn’t budged on isolation pay beyond its meagrely-available £500 payment and concessions forced by campaigning in some areas (some care homes, Test Centres, etc.).
It is not supporting the demand to end patent restrictions on Covid vaccines, and requisition Big Pharma assets to speed vaccine production. World jab rates have increased a little, from 0.2 jabs per 100 population per day to about 0.33, but are still far too slow.
Covid deaths were increased by long-term policy of running the NHS with minimum “slack”, and social care at minimum cost. The Tories’ insulting 1% pay offer to NHS workers shows us that those long-term policies continue, underneath and behind the emergency measures improvised under pressure.
The news on vaccine efficacy continues good, so the latest seven-day figures show UK Covid death rates about as low as last July-August, and hospital admissions down 7% on the previous seven days, even though cases were up 17%.
Worldwide, death rates have dropped a bit since 29 April. (India’s rates have fallen; Argentina’s have risen steeply, but on a smaller base).
But worldwide rates are still higher than at any time before 8 January 2021. Even the recent improvements may be just until the next variant spreads, or until the current vaccinations start to lose efficacy. The need remains for covid-distancing measures and quarantines, and for the labour movement to fight for social measures to make those policies workable and efficacious and reduce their social costs.
Workplace risk assessments, for example, need to be looked at again, since the variant now becoming dominant in the UK, B.1.617.2, may be over twice as transmissible as older variants dominant before October or November 2020.
Keep up the fight against the virus for social solidarity, mutual aid, and workers’ control!
