Boris Johnson has come under fire after blaming care homes for surges in Covid-19 cases by saying they didn’t follow the correct procedures. Experts have since come out to defend care homes, many of which are still having to provide their own PPE and aren’t getting sufficient access to testing.
Appearing on live news yesterday during a visit to Yorkshire, Johnson said the government ‘discovered too many care homes didn’t really follow the procedures in the way that they could have but we’re learning lessons the whole time.’
Mark Adams, the chief executive of Community Integrated Care, which provides care to a range of people in England and Scotland, has since appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to condemn Johnson’s view saying he is ‘unbelievably disappointed.’
‘I think this, at best, was clumsy and cowardly, but to be honest with you, if this is genuinely his view, I think we’re almost entering a Kafka-esque alternative reality where the government set the rules, we follow them, they don’t like the results and they then deny setting the rules and blame the people that were trying to do their best,’ he said.
‘Because you’ve got 1.6 million social care workers who, when most of us are locked away in our bunkers, waiting out Covid, and really trying to protect our family, we’ve got these brave people on minimum wage, often with no sickness cover at all, going into work to protect our parents, our grandparents, our children, putting their own health and potentially lives at risk,’ Adams continued. ‘And then to get perhaps the most senior man in the country turning round and blaming on them what has been an absolute travesty of leadership from the government, I just think it’s appalling.’
He confirmed that the entire social care system had to source 90% of its PPE since the beginning of the crisis and that hasn’t changed, also adding that they had been ‘abandoned’ when it came to Covid testing.
‘We didn’t test social care until the end of May,’ he said. ‘So us, like most social care operators, had our losses before we’d even started having any testing at all. Yes, the testing has now reached a point where most of our staff in care homes and most of the residents in care homes have been tested once, but once is absolutely useless because if you get tested and then get on the bus back home, and you pick up the virus on the bus, within a week you’re potentially asymptomatic and infectious.
We have been crying out for weekly testing for months.
‘We have been crying out for weekly or ideally twice-weekly testing, for months and we’ve only just got that commitment,’ he added. ‘It is a question of the horse bolting and shutting the stable door.’
Business secretary Alok Sharma has since attempted to clarify Johnson’s comments, saying he was ‘certainly not blaming care homes’ for Covid-19 deaths. ‘I think what he was actually pointing out is that nobody knew what the correct procedures were at the time because, quite frankly, we didn’t know what the extent of asymptomatic transmission was,’ he said. ‘That wasn’t known at the time. We then put in place very detailed action plans for care homes, we made sure there was a rigorous testing regime put in place, and we also ensured there was extra money - there was £600m that went in as part of an infection control fund. So we have supported the sector throughout.’
In a briefing earlier today, the prime minister’s spokesperson also reiterated that Johnson's comments had been misunderstood, but repeatedly avoided giving an answer when asked whether Johnson regretted his choice of words given the upset it had caused.
However, his comments have done little to ease anger online where resentment towards Johnson’s attitude is growing. Because, while he makes public statements accusing care home of doing the wrong thing, he is yet to hold his own advisor and father accountable for breaking the rules the rest of the public has been made to follow.
After Dominic Cummings broke lockdown rules, there were numerous reports of people following suit out of sheer anger at the double standard. ‘We know that there is understandable public anger over the Dominic Cummings incident and Boris Johnson’s defence of it, and that this anger is the basis of some people now rejecting the guidance on staying at home,’ Professor John Drury, a social psychologist at the University of Sussex, told The Guardian in May.
And after his own father bent the rules to go to his holiday home in Greece, further anger was ignited as it seems Johnson is incapable of holding his own friends and family to the standard he expects of the public. And now, to choose to blame the most vulnerable, most under-funded sector while staying silent on the culpability of those closest to him? It’s far from just 'cowardly'.
Ultimately, it speaks to the entire ethos this government has put forward throughout lockdown. It’s all about putting the onus on other people, making them personality responsible so when things go wrong, there is someone else to blame. First it was telling people to stay home while refusing to officially close non-essential services, which served to protect the insurance industry over struggling business owners that didn’t have any guidance on how to move forward.
Then the Government decided to change its signature slogan from ‘stay at home’ to ‘stay alert’ – implying that as long as you ‘stay alert,’ then no one will die and if people do die, it’s because you’re not doing what you're supposed to. Experts warned this would create a false sense of security, and despite this when people flocked to beaches and parks the government took no responsibility for their part in the misleading messaging.
And now the Government remains at odds with many experts in terms of the speed with which they're lifting lockdown. All the while, they’re quite literally – in Matt Hancock’s words – putting the ‘onus’ on employers, businesses and the public to protect people from Covid-19 while businesses cry out for clear guidance on what they should actually be doing.
They put it on the public to know how to prevent the spread of Covid-19 because, quite frankly, they don’t know how to themselves. Rather than follow the leads of world-class leaders like Jacinda Ardern, they’re crumbling and choosing to deflect blame off their own failures. Care workers are just the first the government will likely blame for their own mistakes, and that is the cruellest part of all.
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