A ship at sea

Subject: A ship at sea.

"At the end of this month" and so the announcement of a further measure to limit the flow of people who may carry the virus through our airports and into our society is made Other countries have for a month or more had in place vetting procedure for  incoming passengers believing they are a main source of the virus spreading  world wide. Some countries have placed a ban on all incoming foreigners advising  them they are not welcome and insisting that returning citizens isolate in specially designated isolation centres at their own cost. 

We on the other hand have deemed it ok for passengers disembarking at Heathrow and other airports in the UK to simply walk out of the airport with no checks. We in our wisdom decided that it was too much trouble to organise any sort of quarantine, the assumption being that the probability of catching someone with the virus was small and that the disruption to passengers wasn't worth he effort. The fact that someone with a full blown infective virus would possibly infect many people before they came down with the disease seems to have escaped them. It's a game of least done the better which has characterised our governments response to what was clearly going on around the world.
It wasn't as if they hadn't had plenty of examples of best practice from countries who are now to be getting back on their feet and allowing people back to work. At first we ignored the virus and suggested that Herd immunity was the best course of action. And then frightened by the rapidly rising death toll advised 'voluntary' isolation and distancing hoping that would work. Then when it didn't and the rate of infection began to rise exponentially, whist successful nations such as China, South Korea, Germany, even the Nordic countries (Sweden who went for Herd immunity)  notorious  for their 'go it alone' attitude imposed a total lock down, which worked if anyone here had cared to look. And now, at last they seem to have got around to realising we are, once more out of step in allowing our main incoming artery for the infection, passengers disembarking from aeroplanes be remedied by imposing self isolating quarantine but not, you will note until the end of this month, a good 20 days away and even then not enforced as it is in successful countries. Once more ineffective, the 'powers that be' are late and tawdry in their response. It's as if it's a game of cricket and it's seen as bad form to hurry or show panic, stiff upper lip and all that.
Testing in this country has become a farce as they tried to push up numbers by including testing kits sent by post to key workers but not returned. Even then, they failed the moderate target of 100.000, way behind what the Germans, with a capacity of 500.000 tests a week already  had in place, a testing regime which identifies who has the virus and who doesn't, allowing  the Germans to begin getting a healthy work force back to work  . As I write the Germans are ramping up their testing to more than a million per week whilst we still struggle with 100.000.
Hiding deaths in old people's care homes and leaving the carer's to stew without protective clothing is close to criminal and yet we still see the same old faces spewing out the same old lies.

The farce that parliamentary scrutiny has fallen into, with a government having such a majority that they can ignore any criticism and a jingoistic press, baying for a return to work, irrespective of the medical argument against it and you have the complete picture.

Of Blighty at sea without a certificated skipper and a crew who don't know how to sail the boat.