Mass COVID-19 testing scheduled for parts of Britain
In England, following on from the countrywide lockdown, people living in Tier 3 will have access to mass testing- even if they currently show no symptoms of the Virus. This amounts to over 23 million people across England and represents one of the largest mass testing programmes in Europe. Unlike other countries, such as Slovakia, which tested two-thirds of the entire population in two days, England’s scheme is voluntary.
Privatisation Shock Doctrine in full effect as the Tories take advantage of the COVID-19 Crisis
Daragh O’Neill sounds the alarm bell on creeping Tory privatisation of our NHS, which is taking advantage of coronavirus gripping the country to accelerate changes and siphon off public money.
CP Executive Committee: COVID-19 shows the need to fight for jobs and pay
“The COVID crisis has exposed jobs, the right to work and society’s total dependence on labour as the fault-line of capitalism”, Andy Bain told the Communist Party’s Executive Committee on Saturday (8 August 2020).
CP Executive Committee: Tories face ‘heavy reckoning’
‘This Tory government will face a heavy reckoning for its disastrous response to the COVID-19 crisis’, Communist Party General Secretary Robert Griffiths told the party’s online Executive Committee meeting at the weekend.
Democratic Federalism, the Welsh Economy & Economic Justice
Nathan James makes the case for radical economic planning and redistribution in Wales to reverse a decade of austerity and invigorate democratic rights.
Democratic federalism emphasises the symbiotic relationship between public sector intervention and economic democracy at a local, federal and national level. It requires a significant level of income redistribution at federal level combined with the development of economic democracy at the local and national level. This vision stands in contrast to the type of economic devolution mandated for English regions by the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act (2016).
Care Worker MP sacked for speaking out
Former care worker and Labour MP Nadia Whittome revealed today (May 6th 2020) that she had lost her job at Nottinghamshires’s Lark Hill retirement village for speaking out about a lack of PPE. The MP for Nottingham East, who returned to work at the care home a month ago due to the COVID-19 pandemic, revealed that she was told on Tuesday (May 5th 2020) she would no longer be given shifts due to her comments.
Hancock tells Doctor MP to watch her ‘tone’
Health Secretary Matt Hancock instructed Labour MP and A&E doctor Rosena Allin-Khan to watch her “tone” in during an exchange in Parliament today (5 May 2020).
During the Health and Social Care Questions session Dr Allin-Khan alleged that the government’s testing strategy was “non-existent” and that “testing figures are now being manipulated” after it emerged uncompleted tests were being counted towards the government’s 100,000 tests a day figure.
Wales: Mixed Response to Covid-19
The Welsh National Health Service should be applauded for playing a leading role in Britain’s coronavirus treatment programme by extracting Covid-19 convalescent plasma from healthy blood to help patients develop immunity by providing antibodies to combat the virus.
In the same breath, Welsh Labour and Tory ministers in Westminster should be ridiculed for neglecting to act on the cross-government UK pandemic drill, Exercise Cygnus, which took place in October 2016 and accurately concluded that the NHS would be plunged into an enormous crisis by the outbreak of a highly infectious and deadly strain of influenza.
The importance of ventilators should not be questioned
It is rare for us to pay any notice to what is published in the Daily Mail. However, their article titled “Is this proof ‘life-saving’ ventilators are actually deathtraps?” is so devoid of science, and so potentially dangerous, that it must be responded to. The central premise of the article is that invasive ventilation (i.e. having […]
Cornwall & COVID-19
Like other regions of the UK and many other parts of the world, Cornwall has been on lockdown since the end of March with many workplaces having shut down and many workers having been furloughed. Governmental failings have been repeated here, as elsewhere, with lack of PPE and protection for essential workers and vulnerable people.
