Sunday Blog 25: A Confusing Time
July 19, 2020The latest miss-step of the Boris campaign (government is not really the right word) is that the daily death rate is found to be so badly wrong that the information has been withdrawn pending the outcome of another irritating ‘review’. Our problem is that ministers are at sixes and sevens over a wide range of issues at a time of twin national emergencies, Covid and the economy. And coming down the track, Brexit. Mixed messaging, U-turns, systemic failures, muddled decision processes and flawed or missing data, all contribute to mounting anxiety about what the future holds.
Adding to our woes, we have decided to sour our relations with China and Russia, we are leaving the EU (sorry we have left, but we a currently in transition so we don’t feel it yet) and we have just taken a political decision over Huawei which looks like turning into an economic disaster. Because Chinese technology is cheaper and much better than any alternative on offer. So we now have to wait on Eriksson and Nokia to step in, at what extra cost and delay we have yet to discover.
The promise to be among the first in the world to install 5G across our country, enhancing our connectivity to boost our economy, was a bold one. To mess up the plan because Trump & Co are angry that Chinese technology is way ahead of their own, while here the Tory nationalist right wing treat Boris as their poodle because he is, is plain stupid. The security issues are rubbish. China does not want to screw its customers by turning out their lights, not least because they know perfectly well we have the capacity right now to turn out theirs. And they have more lights.
As for the pandemic, here are the figures.
China 83,660 cases, 4634 deaths. New cases yesterday 16.
America 3,883,716 cases, 142,881 deaths. New cases yesterday 74,710.
Nothing more to be said.