Prime Minister Boris Johnson has finally decided to issue official advice regarding Coronavirus. It comes after another 12 people have been diagnosed with the virus today. So without causing any further alarm, we have examined the advice, along with some obtained from other channels to give you the overall picture.
Boris started his speech by reassuring the public that up to a fifth of the workforce may be off sick during the peak of a coronavirus epidemic in the UK. Although a fifth sounds a lot, it is in fact only 20%, so there will still be 80% hard at it, whilst the lucky ones get to sit at home with their feet up.
He continued by saying that “police may need to focus on only the most serious crimes and maintaining public order if the virus spreads”. So if you have some spare time on your hands (perhaps if you are one of the lucky 20%), you may want to join in with some petty crime as its unlikely you will get charged, or even caught.
The government says that its response is in its first stage – containing the outbreak – with the number of UK cases rising from 39 to 51 on Tuesday. So far then, they are not doing particularly well as today shows the biggest rise in infections in a single day. Perhaps if they had stopped people returning from Italy, or quarantining them for 14 days – like they did on the cruise ship in Japan, we would not be in such a pickle.
Luckily, Boris was able to reassure everyone by saying that it is “highly likely” the UK will see further infection. So what happened to containing the outbreak then?? The next phase of government contingency planning will be to do with delaying the spread of the virus. Does that mean delaying it from a Friday to a Monday by letting us all stay at home for the weekend. Perhaps the government are praying for another bunch of weekend storms to keep us all indoors.
The Government have a 4 stage plan to save us – surprised they can count that high
His next piece of news was that if the coronavirus, which causes Covid-19, becomes widespread, some non-urgent hospital care may be delayed to focus on treating those who are infected. Hang on a minute, what happened to the containment stage? Most hospital treatment is subject to delay anyway – its called a waiting list – so it will be service as normal for the NHS.
The last part of Boris’s four stage plan to save us is mitigating the impact of the virus once it becomes established and a research programme to improve diagnostics and treatment for the disease. It is at this point he will deny the three other stages in his master plan, before disappearing into his nuclear bunker for an undisclosed amount of time.
Boris’s final bit of help for us all was that we need to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ twice over, as we wash our hands. Apparently this is about the right amount of time needed to thoroughly get your hands clean – which is 20 seconds. As adults, we are actually capable of counting 20 seconds, so we may just continue to do that, but thanks Boris!
Overall then, we do not need to worry as we are in safe hands – and clean hands too. The coronavirus has only been in the news for the past 3 months and in that time we have left the airports and ports open so everyone can come marching back into the UK without any checks taking place. Something about horse and ‘bolted’ comes to mind. We could have closed the doors weeks ago, but then again, there are so many illegal immigrants coming ashore, why bother shutting the doors when your windows are still wide open? But do not fear, as Boris is relaxed as can be and is sure everything will come good in the end.
Elsewhere, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has done his best to calm the public by warning that the NHS was already at 94% bed occupancy before the coronavirus hit. There’s nothing like trying to put the boot in and upsetting the entire British public at the same time. Thankfully Jeremy will soon be out of a job in front line politics, but there will be plenty of jobs doing deep cleaning work becoming available soon.
Other news from London was that Mayor of London Sadiq Khan released a statement that there were currently no plans to postpone the London Marathon nor to restrict public transport. Watch out for that decision to come back and bite him on his backside soon.
Meanwhile the Scottish (Football Association) have also joined the ‘statement’ bandwagon by publishing their guidance. They have told players and officials not to shake hands as part of authorities attempts to reduce the spread of coronavirus. That may work before the start of the game, but they have not told players to hug and dive on each other when one of them scores a goal. They also forgot to mention not sharing the communal bath or showers after the match!
