“The single biggest false assumption that we made was about the potential for asymptomatic transmission, and that did govern a lot of policy in the early days.
That misunderstanding about the reality of asymptomatic transmission certainly led to real problems.”
Boris Johnson, 23 March 2021
This is me exactly one year ago, on the way to King’s College Hospital with Covid. It’s an anniversary I’d sooner forget, to be honest.
But I’m sharing it for a reason.
Yesterday, Boris Johnson excused himself for presiding over our crushing first wave with suggestions to the effect that “We didn’t know what we were dealing with back then”, that it was a “novel disease”, and there was a “misunderstanding of the reality of asymptomatic transmission”….
(You can watch him for yourself in the video below.)
With these excuses, Johnson clearly still wants us to buy his overall line, “We did everything we could”.
But let me tell you about King’s College Hospital. Exactly 15 days before this grim day, on 9 March, I attended King’s for an ultrasound. One of London’s biggest teaching hospitals, it was humming, busy as usual.
When I returned in the ambulance on 24 March, the place was deathly silent, a sealed Covid centre, with now-familiar one-way systems, doors locked, routine work abandoned. Wards had been taken-over and isolated for Covid, and a steady stream of patients was arriving by ambulance.
It was dramatic: in those 15 days, the hospital had metamorphosed. It was ready. Not just ready, but up and running. In those 15 days, the hospital, and presumably the whole NHS, had seen what was coming, rolled up its sleeves and got organised.
The hospital knew. NHS managers – now denigrated as “smoking ruins” by Johnson’s henchman – knew. They took action. Meanwhile, in those same 15 days, with Italy and the whole world screaming “It’s coming – do something!”, Johnson did next to nothing.
Massive sporting events continued. Older folk were advised to avoid cruises – remember that? There was hand washing. There was hand-wringing. But by the time he called the lockdown, I and others were already gasping for breath.
Hundreds of thousands of people like me were infected – had been infected for a fortnight already – and many thousands were in, or on their way, to hospital.
Here’s the thing: if the hospital and the NHS knew, the government knew. If the hospitals could act, why couldn’t the government? Because it was a “novel” virus? Because we “didn’t know then what we know now” about transmissibility and asymptomatic infection?
No. Because Johnson – the worst leader at the worst time – was frozen in the headlights. The hospitals knew, and they acted. The government knew too, but, far from doing “everything they could”, they did as little as they could. And we suffered, and we died.