Post Covid19 planning and European Co-operation

In a time of crisis there is no room for complacency and the blue skies thinking of weirdos. Obviously, people need to be told what to do to alleviate the emergency and this should be done. There should be no room for yes men, however. Authority and responsibility should be firmly linked together. If  adminstrators or civil servants ordered to do something then those doing the ordering should take responsibility. There is no other way management of a crisis can be conducted.

We need to be planning for the post Covid19 recovery now. This is no time to be thinking about anything else. The Brexit transition should be extended indefinitely.  We need to be working with our European neighbours as closely as possible to recover the health of our nations and our economies. This is no time for ideology to replace practicality.

We need the free movement of workers across Europe to help balance excesses in one nation against deficits in another. We need to allow musicians and artists to cross borders freely, to cheer us up and improve morale when the restrictions are finally lifted. We need scientists and medical staff to exchange ideas freely. We need security co-operation.

The British people are about to find out what happens when public services are denuded of resources. The health service will struggle. The Police do not have enough staff to maintain public order and to ensure that no-one is moving around or assembling unnecessarily. This situation must change, in the future there must be more resilience granted to the public services to account for an emergency.  The police,especially, are now going to have to rely upon the co-operation of the public. Probably the Army, Navy and RAF do not have enough resources to support the police in a real emergency if there is rioting or widespread social disorder.

The public must co-operate by staying at home and social distancing. Surely, it is worthwhile losing our civil liberties for a short period rather than let the virus spread uncontrolled to kill hundreds of thousands. Our economy could be damaged permanently if the the virus is allowed to "let rip".

It is time to stop the abuse of our police, ambulance and rescue forces and damage to their equipment. If you are told to disassemble or isolate yourself, or keep your distance by the police than do so without complaint.

There is some hope that drugs to alleviate symptoms will be on the market in a few months but the problem will not be solved. Only a vaccine can truly resolve the crisis.

Soon a serological test will be made available which will be able to test subjects for anti-bodies, so that doctors can tell who has already recovered from the virus, and who are still sick, and those that have not yet encountered the virus, and those who are infected but asymptomatic. This test can be done in ten minutes, and it will be a very powerful tool to help control the disease.

When a vaccine is finally available a substantial proportion  should be serologically tested before they are vaccinated to obtain demographic information about the virus. We should then be planning for the next pandemic to come our way and make sure all the equipment and people are in place before it comes a severe problem.

There is no room for complacency. Heed the warnings as well , please.