If we do not change their minds quickly, Boris Johnson and the UK government will be responsible for a frightening number of unnecessary deaths. We need a massive campaign now to make them change course. Please sign.
The World Health Organization says ‘Do not let this fire burn’; that governments should identify, track, isolate and treat each case. Governments all over Europe are closing schools, cancelling events and trying to lockdown the virus.
Our government is doing none of those things. They are planning for a fast epidemic that infects at least 40% of the population within the next two or three months. Then, they say, the survivors will be immune. In the meantime, the dying will have absolutely overwhelmed the NHS. Older people and those with chronic illnesses will go without treatment. Ministers are also briefing the newspapers that we cannot close the schools because it will cost 3% of GDP.
Public pressure can change the government approach.
• We need isolation for everyone who is sick, treatment for everyone who needs it, and testing for everyone who asks for it. Now.
• Where we do not have the capacity, bend every sinew and spend every pound we can to create the capacity.
• We need the government and employers to pay people who have to stay home because they are sick or to look after children.
• We need to make sure everyone has food and medicines. All that will be expensive. So spend the money.
We cannot campaign in the usual ways. But there are ways to work both online and face to face. First, sign up here.
We need individual names, some of celebrities, but most from the rest of us. Groups are also very important – faith communities, local and national groups of unions, campaigns, NGOs and political parties, book groups, sports clubs and so on. The more signups we get, the more influential people and organisations will sign up. We must mobilise our entire society to stop the virus – and we must make links across borders, in solidarity against this truly global catastrophe.
Get the word out online. Show each other we are a mass movement. Do whatever you want, but please keep using the hashtag #ProtectThePeople, so we build the movement our society urgently needs.
Together we can move the government. Please help us act swiftly before it’s too late. Every day matters.