Long term reasons

With the death total reaching 100,000. the media`s focus has naturally been on the reasons for the UK has suffering so badly. Even though the Guardian has devoted many articles and editorials on the subject, especially on the indecision and errors of the government since January 2020, only Rafael Baer has broached the issue of the most important long-term factor: how ten years of unnecessary austerity measures led to massive under-investment in the NHS, with the obvious consequence of unpreparedness for a busy winter period, let alone one with the added problems caused by a pandemic. As Behr says, the pandemic has revealed the "penalty we all pay for neglect of public health infrastructure" (The pandemic has made the case for social democracy, 27/01/21). Devi Sridhar in her detailed analysis of the reasons, suggests that "the lack of personal protective equipment for many health and social workers" at the start of the crisis was the "fourth error", which ignores one vital detail from four years earlier; the government and NHS leadership knew of the gaps in Britain`s ability to cope with such an emergency after Operation Cygnus, a government simulation of a flu outbreak, in 2016 (Five fatal errors that led to the UK`s 100,000 Covid deaths, 28/01/21). The Cygnus report stressed how the UK`s preparedness was "currently not sufficient to cope" with a pandemic`s demands.(What was Exercise Cygnus and what did it find, 07/05/20). The exercise had shown how important it was to have sufficient PPE for all doctors and nurses, and ventilators and critical care beds for the patients. How many lives could have been saved had the Tory prime ministers, May and Johnson, and the relevant Health Secretaries, Hunt and Hancock, done their jobs properly? Has ideologically driven austerity ever cost a nation so dear?