Tories must stop hiding behind the ‘science’ of coronavirus

A couple of weeks ago, when he was a guest on BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Cox reminded us that there is no such thing as “the science”. He said that any politician who says this doesn’t understand what science is; that science is a “mindset, it’s about trying to understand, where doubt is to be welcomed, not feared”.

His words seem especially important because of the UK Government’s rather blatant use of their scientists as human shields. Show me a minister who says “we are following the science” and I’ll show you a subtext which says “don’t blame me I’m just a politician”. Show me a politician who reaches for the latest modelling and I will show you someone who has not got a clue.

It’s this kind of obfuscation and clumsy finger-pointing that has added to an already anxious British public’s feelings of worry and insecurity about life after lockdown, with polls in the past week suggesting that, unlike big business Tory donors pushing for a quick exit from lockdown, citizens across these isles are very nervous about what this “new normality” will actually entail and just how safe it will be.

The dogs in the street know how poor the UK response to this pandemic has been. Journalists from around the world are looking in and are appalled at just how badly Westminster has got it wrong and how much all their subsequent decisions have been forced to fit their early and fatal mistakes. Remember back in these halcyon days of early March, Brits were going to “take it on the chin” with the “bulldog spirit” pulling us through. It was a case of “British exceptionalism” – that is, exceptionally bad.

The grim reality is that the grim reaper has now, according to latest modelling, claimed 55,000 excess deaths in the UK as a consequence of coronavirus. We have heard a great deal from our mainstream media about how other countries are concealing their true mortality statistics. In fact it would seem no country – not even the totalitarian ones – have covered up more than the UK, everything from the hidden and shamefully neglected scandal in the care sector to the death certificates of patients not tested for the virus and in many cases not even seen by a doctor.

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The troubling truth is that – in this as in much else – the real fault of Scotland is staying far too close to the “four-nations approach”. Let us be blunt. That united approach through disastrous decisions such as abandoning contact tracing on March 12 has cost thousands of lives. In a revealing and damming admission to the Select Committee yesterday, UK Government chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance (below) “could not remember” why the UK experts hadn’t even modelled the impact of a continuing policy of contact tracing. The London Government is having the same convenient memory loss on who exactly promoted the concept of “herd immunity” in the first place.

Wisely the Scottish Government has not yet fallen headlong into the embrace of the Isle of Wight pilot app as the magic bullet to bring back test, trace and isolate. There are legitimate concerns on civil liberties and even greater doubts on its technical efficacy. However, the real reason is that while really clever apps might well be of help with contact tracing, they are no substitute for boots on the ground.

The Scottish Government should concentrate now on doing what arguably all governments across these islands should have done two months ago – mobilising the citizens’ army of contact tracers. There are environmental health officers, livestock officers, government vets around this nation who should be encouraged into service.

These professions understand how to identify and stamp out infectious diseases. They have been doing it superbly in Scotland for generations because another hard truth is that this country is better equipped to eradicate disease in animals than with human beings. We should not be distracted or detracted by Scottish Secretary Alister “Union” Jack who wants to chain Scotland to a “one United Kingdom” approach.

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This is a completely new virus and we need to throw everything at it.

It doesn’t fit existing models, we’re not sure about levels of immunity, we’re not sure why certain people get more ill than others, we’re not sure how long lasting its effects will be or how much damage it might do to internal organs.

So many unknowns. So much doubt. So much to understand.

But here is the rub. Politicians who use as their stock excuse that they are being “led by the science” are doomed to disappointment and will continue to fail the people.

There is no exact science available, no magic formula, no brilliant model, no perfect answer – only the tried-and-tested methods of disease control. These were the methods which were criminally abandoned in March and must be urgently implemented now.

When it comes to coronavirus, the real task of political leadership is not to understand the virus but to eradicate it and to do it before more people needlessly die.