Event: Don’t end self-isolation for people with Covid-19!

Thursday 24 February 2022, 6:30pm GMT

Self-isolation for people with Covid-19 is one of the last safeguards we have against Covid, ending it will make the situation worse.

About this event

We have called an emergency meeting in response to Boris Johnson’s announcement that he will remove all remaining safeguards against the spread of the virus, including the requirement for people who are infected to remain in self-isolation for a short period.

The pandemic is far from over, with both new cases and deaths remaining at deeply worrying levels. The Health Secretary has already told us that the pressures on the NHS will continue for years to come and even intensify. Now is not the time to be removing a crucial measure to prevent the virus spreading.

It seems clear that this announcement is not based on scientific advice and many believe it is politically motived.

Come to our meeting to hear leading experts on the announcement, and what this might mean for public health and society in general.

Speakers to be announced.

Petition: Don’t end self-isolation for people with Covid

Boris Johnson has just announced that he will end self-isolation for people infected with Covid-19.

Now is not the time to allow greater freedom for the virus. New cases and deaths remain at disturbingly dangerous levels. The Health Secretary already told us that the pressures on the NHS will get worse for years.

Ending the requirement for self-isolation will make the situation worse. It removes one of the last remaining safeguards we have.

In a snap poll for YouGov, 75% of the population disagree with this decision and only 17% support it. 

This decision will force a huge number of people, especially the vulnerable or immuno-suppressed into isolation as a result.

There is no indication that this measure is based on scientific advice, and we call on the government to re-think this reckless decision and reverse course. 

Can one arrogant, privileged egotist fighting to save his job wish this global pandemic away?

This article originally appeared on Labour Hub.


Remember when the Prime Minister repeatedly told us he was ‘following the science’? Remember those televised press conferences when he was flanked by the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Adviser providing the expert advice on what we all needed to know and do to protect ourselves and our loved ones from the deadly SARS-CoV-2 virus?

There was no press conference, no updates on the gov.uk website, no sign of Chris Whitty or Patrick Vallance, when the Prime Minister announced in Parliament on 9th February 2022 that he was planning to bring forward an end to England’s rules on self-isolation later this month.

‘Following the science’? But the scientists and medical experts of SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) didn’t meet until the day after this announcement. And by that time the press was reporting that it wouldn’t just be self-isolation that would end – the days of free testing and even the ‘gold standard’ ONS Coronavirus Infection Survey are limited.

Everyone around the world wants this pandemic to end, to be able to live without restrictions and to meet, love and touch without fear. That doesn’t necessarily mean a return to normal: for millions that normal isn’t something they have any desire to return to. But does that mean we abolish all measures? Is the pandemic over? Can 200 people dying every day in the UK just be written off? Or the over 2 million people currently sick with Covid?

Can one arrogant, privileged egotist fighting to save his job wish this global pandemic away?

Covid is no respecter of borders or British exceptionalism.

Nor is it now a ‘mild’ disease like a cold or the flu. For some fortunate people it’s not too bad. But others can end up facing months, years, even a lifetime of debilitating and chronic illness.

Testing is more than the inconvenience of sticking a swab up your nose to see whether you have Covid. As Professor Christina Pagel of Independent SAGE has said: “Without data we are blind.”

And that blindness could include no longer being able to determine whether the virus has mutated yet again, and what effect any new variants are having.

SAGE warned at that meeting the day after Johnson’s announcement that “new SARS-CoV-2 variants will continue to emerge… including variants that are less susceptible to current vaccines, resistant to antivirals, or are associated with altered disease severity… There is no reason why future dominant variants should be similarly or less severe than Omicron, which may be an exception in having lower severity. The next dominant variant in the UK (and internationally) could have similar pathogenicity to previous variants, such as Delta.”

Not being able to identify new variants is just one of the problems associated with Johnson’s plans to declare the pandemic over next week.

Allowing – indeed, encouraging – infectious people, many of whom will think they just have a cold, to mingle freely is a recipe for disaster. It takes us back to the early days of the pandemic when we had few tools to protect ourselves and others against infection, when key workers and those who could not afford to do otherwise were travelling to work in close contact with each other in poorly ventilated workplaces.

Remember Belly Mujinga, who died in April 2020 after being coughed and spat on at work in Victoria Station? Remember the deaths in care homes? Shopworkers already report problems with abusive, unmasked customers; they and other public-facing workers, especially those with unsympathetic employers or on low pay, will be at even greater risk once more if the legislation on self-isolation is abandoned.

The key difference between now and two years ago is of course the vaccines, of which I am a great fan and advocate. But Omicron has exposed the fact that vaccination on its own is not enough to protect us and stop community transmission. And SAGE is warning that “there is significant potential for transmission to increase if behaviours revert rapidly to pre-pandemic norms and mitigations are removed.”

A strategy of Vaccine-Plus, as advocated by Independent SAGE and campaigns such as Zero Covid, is essential. Protecting each other from infection through mask-wearing, good ventilation and effective contact tracing is hardly the restriction to our freedoms the right wing like to make out, especially not when only 65.6% of the UK population aged 12 and over have had the currently needed three doses, and the highly infectious BA.2 subvariant of Omicron is breaking through to push up case numbers again.

Official figures say one in 19 people are currently infectious. Go on the bus or to the pub or cinema and you’re likely to be alongside several people who may be unintentionally spreading the virus.

This is especially dangerous for those most at risk from infection, those millions of us designated “vulnerable” and those who live with us. Most at risk are those with weak or compromised immune systems who could become seriously ill or die if they catch Covid.

It is a commonly held misconception that those who are at risk are less likely to be in work or education, but this is most certainly not the case. Many will be key workers in retail, hospitality, transport, delivery, education, care homes and the NHS. Many will be children or parents, the groups with the highest infection rates at the moment. And those who can stay at home will be locking themselves down yet again, unable to enjoy any kind of fake freedom.

Not that the government seems to care about that. It stopped all support for shielders many months ago. Appeasing the Covid Recovery Group to keep the Prime Minister in power is the top priority, closely followed by the Tories’ ideological favourites: shrink the state support systems, blame everyone else, and make the poor pay.

The pandemic is not over, not in England, not in the UK, and not across the world. While the scientists work on new and better vaccines, the existing ones are saving lives and protecting against some of the worst illness.

But there is still a long way to go. 61.8% of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, but only 10.6% of people in low-income countries have. This means the virus could continue to rampage through communities, mutating as it does so, and spreading rapidly across the world yet again.

The Prime Minister’s plan to declare an end to the pandemic has been met with outrage in many quarters. SAGE scientists can no longer be relied on to be onboard to back him up. Within minutes of the announcement, the Daily Mirror had called it out as the ‘dead cat’ it so obviously is. But it is a dangerous disease-carrying defunct feline which has to be stopped. At the very least, we must demand our MPs ensure self-isolation, testing and mask-wearing continue for as long as they are necessary protections. You can write to your MP here.

Joan Twelves is a community, trade union and Labour Party activist. She is a member of the Zero Covid Steering Committee and a former Leader of Lambeth Council. Her occasional blogs can be found at https://joantwelves.wordpress.com/

Video: Covid-19 has not gone away. Only the restrictions on it have.

The pandemic is not receding, with hospitalisations and deaths still high. Ignoring Covid-19 is reckless and this negligence must be opposed

There are widespread and false claims that the pandemic is receding. Globally, new cases are currently well over 3 million per day and around 4 times higher than the previous peak in April 2021. In addition, this has happened extraordinarily suddenly, with the surge taking place in the first few part of this year. With a short time lag new daily deaths have also begun to rise. If there is such a thing as a ‘mild’ pandemic, this is not one of them.

The misinformation and even propaganda about the pandemic receding is clearly wrong. In Britain this is almost all based on the fall in recorded new cases. Yet deaths are still rising and hospitalisations remain stubbornly high. It is not known how much non-reporting there is of people who have had a positive lateral flow test.

Despite this the government has abandoned its own ‘Plan B’, PCR tests are largely a thing of the past and people are no longer advised to work from home. It is even reported that the requirement for those infected to self-isolate will be dropped. This is a reckless approach. At our last meeting we reached over 48,000 people online.

Speakers

  • Diane Abbott MP
  • Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP
  • Richard Horton (Editor at the Lancet Medical Journal)
  • Lawrence Davies (Lawyer for Belly Mujinga)
  • Vicky van der Togt (Pandemic-Aid Networks)
  • Ramona McCartney Peoples Assembly Against Austerity
  • Richard von Abendorff – Lewisham Deptford CLP

Online meeting: Covid-19 has not gone away. Only the restrictions on it have. (8 February 2022)

Tuesday 8 February 2022, 6:30pm BST

The pandemic is not receding, with hospitalisations and deaths still high. Ignoring Covid-19 is reckless and this negligence must be opposed

About this event

There are widespread and false claims that the pandemic is receding. Globally, new cases are currently well over 3 million per day and around 4 times higher than the previous peak in April 2021. In addition, this has happened extraordinarily suddenly, with the surge taking place in the first few part of this year. With a short time lag new daily deaths have also begun to rise. If there is such a thing as a ‘mild’ pandemic, this is not one of them.

The misinformation and even propaganda about the pandemic receding is clearly wrong. In Britain this is almost all based on the fall in recorded new cases. Yet deaths are still rising and hospitalisations remain stubbornly high. It is not known how much non-reporting there is of people who have had a positive lateral flow test.

Despite this the government has abandoned its own ‘Plan B’, PCR tests are largely a thing of the past and people are no longer advised to work from home. It is even reported that the requirement for those infected to self-isolate will be dropped. This is a reckless approach.

At our last meeting we reached over 48,000 people online. Join us for our next meeting, where will discuss the current phase of the crisis.

Speakers Confirmed:

  • Diane Abbott MP
  • Richard Horton (Editor at the Lancet Medical Journal)
  • with more to follow

Online meeting: Where next for the Covid crisis? (10 January 2022)

Monday 10 January 2022, 6:30pm BST

Where next for the Covid crisis, as Omicron cases surge will the government finally do the right thing?

About this event

Once again cases and hospitalisations are rising once more. In some countries the number of new deaths is rising sharply too. It remains to be seen whether that will happen in this country too.

But the current situation already means that large numbers are becoming seriously ill, cases of Long Covid will grow and deaths are rising at an unacceptable rate.

All of this puts enormous strain on the NHS itself. Healthcare workers are off sick themselves while serious cases mount and the peak of the winter ‘flu season is approaching. The same combination of risks, staff illness and rising cases is affecting other sectors, from refuse collection to transport to schools.

Despite all this, Boris Johnson has decided to take no extra measures to restrict the virus, in contrast to the devolved administrations. Countries such as Germany have adopted new measures successfully, and the ZeroCovid countries continue unscarred by the mass deaths seen here and elsewhere.

The question now is whether the NHS faces a breaking-point and will be able to cope with government policy. Our excellent speakers will discuss this and related topics.

Speakers Confirmed:

  • Diane Abbott MP
  • Kevin Courtney
  • Deepti Gurdasani
  • Emmy Kelly
  • Richard Murphy
  • Helen O’Connor
  • Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP
  • with more to follow

Webinar: After Cummings – Why we still need a Zero Covid strategy

Monday 21 June 2021, 6:30pm BST

Register on Eventbrite


The evidence from Dominic Cummings has highlighted the how reckless the government has been since the pandemic began. As Cummings admits, the government he once worked for adopted policies that led to tens of thousands of avoidable deaths. This is one of the most shameful periods in modern British political history.

The revelations come at a time when there is growing and justified concern about the spread of new variants and the rise in new case numbers. These strains emerging globally can be more transmissable, or more severe or could even develop some degree of vaccine resistance. These are real risks.

We in the ZeroCovid Coalition and our many allies have repeatedly warned that vaccines are not a magic bullet, that allowing the virus to freely circulate was also allowing it to mutate and that a maximum suppression strategy was needed, as other countries have successfully implemented. Unfortunately, both the evidence of previous government failures and the risks in the current situation have proven that our warnings were correct and should have been heeded.

But it is not too late. Because case numbers have declined significantly from their peak, and because vaccines do have a strong positive effect, the additional effort to achieve Zero Covid in this country is much less than it was. As a minimum, a government following the data would postpone the June 21st reopening until the overall situation was clearer. The time should be used to correct all the failings of the current test, trace and isolate systems.

We should always have had a Zero Covid strategy to save lives. We still can.

Confirmed Speakers:

  • Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP
  • Claudia Webbe MP
  • Ramona McCartney – People’s Assembly
  • Deepti Gurdasani
  • Vicky van der Togt – Zero Covid Alliance
  • Helen O’Conner – GMB

Webinar: We need a People’s Vaccine – the fight for vaccine equality

Monday 24 May 2021, 6:30pm BST

Register on Eventbrite

By blocking patent waivers and cutting foreign aid, rich countries are making us all unsafe. No one is safe until we are all safe!

Whilst cases are dropping in the UK, it is important that we remind ourselves of the shocking scenes around the world.

In India, the huge rise in cases has quickly overwhelmed the country. Severe overcrowding and an inadequate healthcare system have ensured that the death toll rises out of control . The government’s strategy, modelled on the failed strategy in the UK, has led to catastrophic results.

In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro slavishly followed the Trump model of complete disregard for the virus and took no decisive actions to protect the population. His outlandish claims that some unspecified superiority of his people would protect them has of course led to disaster.

These failings however, do not absolve richer countries of their part in this crisis. By allowing the virus to circulate in their countries they created dangerous mutations. It is widely reported that the mutation ravaging Delhi is UK grown, specifically the Kent variant.

Rich countries have also hampered, instead of helped these countries in their response to the pandemic. The US initially blocked the export of components to make vaccines and richer countries have blocked a patent waiver for vaccines, although some countries are now changing their mind.

Join us as we discuss the global struggle for medical equality, vaccine access for all and the ongoing need for a Zero Covid strategy.

Speakers:

TO BE CONFIRMED

Video: Defending those Hardest Hit in the Pandemic

On Tuesday 20 April 2021, 6:30pm, the Zero Covid Coalition hosted a webinar on how this pandemic has exposed and deepened those inequalities and how we can fight back. You can watch the video here:

Speakers:

  • Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP (chair)
  • Diane Abbott MP
  • Claudia Webbe MP
  • Richard Burgon MP
  • Dr Deepti Gurdasani
  • Kevin Courtney – NEU General Secretary
  • Ian Hodson – BFAWU National President
  • Elane Heffernan – Zero Covid UK
  • Ramona McCartney – People’s Assembly Against Austerity
  • Andy Greene (DPAC)
  • Maciej Krzymieniecki (PCS)
  • Cat Hobbs (We Own It)
  • Larissa Kennedy (NUS)
  • Jenny Sherrard (UCU)
  • Zita Holbourne
  • Weyman Bennett (Stand Up to Racism)

Lobby your MP to support a Zero Covid strategy

Please use our MP lobbying tool to request your local MP to support Richard Burgon’s Early Day Motion calling for the government to adopt a Zero Covid strategy.

The text of the motion is as follows:

That this House notes with sadness that the UK has now had more than 100,000 covid-19 deaths, with one of the highest death rates in the world; further notes that the Government’s strategy to live with the virus and balance the loss of lives and the economy has led to failure on both counts with the UK also experiencing a particularly large economic downturn; recognises that in New Zealand, Vietnam and across countries following a Zero covid plan, the death rate is over a hundred times lower than in the UK and that their societies are reopening safely and their economies are recovering; recognises that, while covid-19 vaccines offer real hope and can be a key weapon in the battle against covid-19, it will be many months until everybody has been fully vaccinated; is concerned that if in the meantime the virus is allowed to circulate widely, many more will be infected with many more losing their lives, putting huge additional strain on the NHS, and risking further dangerous mutations of the virus; and calls on the UK Government urgently to adopt a Zero covid plan that seeks the maximum suppression of the virus as the best way to save lives and allow our communities and the economy to safely reopen.