In October 2016 HMG ran Exercise Cygnus, a simulation of what would happen to the UK should a novel infection attack a medically defenceless UK. It is reported that the exercise revealed an unacceptable state of preparedness with shortages of intensive care beds, various medical and protective equipment and even mortuary space. Cygnus did what it was designed to do, namely it revealed areas of our country’s infrastructure and organisation which were inadequate. So having run the exercise, having produced the (secret, internal) reports, after all the meetings and correspondence, what did HMG do? Treble gins all round, suppression of the report and lapse back into business as usual.
What did the UK MSM do? Nothing, but of course they have an excuse: it is much easier to report on the love lives of whatever current celebrity or royal is involved in a scandal, much easier to take briefings from SpAds and lackeys on Brexit or whatever than to actually do what reporters used to do. You remember, they used to ferret around, discover secrets and hold the powerful to account. You’ve probably forgotten, it’s a long time since they did that.
So here we are, a potential crisis that was assessed, measured and detailed, reports produced and … ignored. The results of that complacency we see all around us.
It’s too late to do anything about CV19 now, we are committed to lockdown, massive inflation, even recession or depression if our politicians perform to their normal abysmal standard, but it’s not too late to learn the lesson that preparation is never wasted, and that we need to prepare for other threats that are known but which have been ignored.
Biological Threats
Inevitably there are conspiracy theories going around about the genesis of CV19 – my favourite is the supposed link with the roll out of 5G – but these always ignore the greatest enemy we have. Mother Nature is a nice metaphor but it’s very inaccurate, Nature is a struggle for domination, conquest and enslavement. To a large extent our civilisation is sheltered from imported diseases, but there is no need to venture into the jungle to be exposed to something new. Every day the bacterial and viral worlds are changing, building new methods of attack, designing ingenious ways of breaking open the great resource that is billions and billions of human bodies. Viruses are difficult to defend against as they change so fast. No sooner have we developed a vaccine than they change to defeat it – hence the need to have a flu jab every year. If those trying to stay one jump ahead of the virus get it wrong we have a flu year like 2014/15 when 28,000 people died in England alone.
For the virus threat the only solution is to ramp up our defences. Response times must be cut. If a new vaccine can be built in very short order then outbreaks can be corralled and eliminated. That is going to be expensive and will involve redundancy (otherwise known as a lot of costly people and equipment sitting around doing nothing) but I can see no other way. Think of it as having armed services ready and waiting – costly to maintain, even more costly to neglect.
Bacteria now, that’s a different matter.
Bacteria are plodders. At first they all die when challenged by an antibiotic. Then a few manage to survive an underdose, then a normal dose, then any dose at all. It may take years but they get there in the end, so we’ve now got resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridium difficile, tuberculosis. Yes, TB, the White Death dreaded by Victorians is making a comeback tour and playing to bigger and bigger houses. To a large extent the medical profession is to blame.
Let me tell you a story … I’m generally reluctant to take medication and I avoid doctors, but when I was aircrew I had to go to the MO if I considered I was unfit to fly. So I went to the MO with a cold. We agreed I had a cold. He wrote me a prescription for three things. Puzzled I asked what they were. Aspirin to lower my temperature. No thanks, don’t have a temperature. Pastilles to sooth my throat. No thanks, it’s not too bad. Antibiotic. It’s a virus, Doc, the antibiotic doesn’t treat that. That’s in case you get a bacterial lung infection. No thanks, if I get an infection I’ll come back.
Long argument. I compromised and took the pastilles. And threw them in the bin.
Things are better now, but it’s too late, the major classes of antibiotics had an open stable door for decades and that horse has bolted.
So we need new horses I hear you say. Absolutely! But the big drug companies claim it’s too expensive to research and develop the new types of antibiotics that will be needed urgently when a totally resistant bug starts to kill us. This is a known problem, it’s discussed in the literature. There’s one new type that shows promise … And how can we stop bootleggers in the crowded slums of the world flogging that vital new treatment to people who like the latest miracle cure and can pay to jump the queue? It happened with penicillin soon after it was discovered. It will happen again. More horses, not just one.
The solution is more research, guided and blue sky, maybe take bacteriophage therapy seriously, anything to widen our modes of defence. We know this is a problem waiting to appear. Why is the UK government not addressing it? I refer you to Exercise Cygnus.
Other Threats
It’s easy to just concentrate on diseases in current circumstances, but there are other known problems which are being ignored.
My big worry is the Grid. We’re very close to our electricity supply being destabilised by too many wind turbines and solar parks being added willy-nilly by anyone who wants to make a fast buck. A failed Grid in winter would kill thousands.
We are burning food in our vehicles. This is not just stupid, it’s morally wrong. We’re killing third world paupers to send each other virtue signals – if ever the balance of power shifts I’d not like to face a court empowered to punish the guilty.
Lungs matter. Pollution-weakened lungs may be implicated in CV19 deaths. Why are we not converting all HGVs to CNG fuel, thereby cutting NOX and particulate pollution on our streets to negligible levels? Why are we not using real-time monitoring of pollution? Current monitoring uses slow, almost Victorian technology.
What would humanity do if an incoming orbital rock showed signs of connecting with the Earth in two years?
Our industry is about to be wiped out by the CV-19 fallout and will need some sort of advantage in the savagely competitive post CV-19 world. So why aren’t we preparing to give it the cheapest energy in the industrial world? Has anyone looked under Lancashire?
How’s the water supply in the South East and London? How’s the flood risk? How are we going to irrigate our crops if we get a drought year?
And on and on. I’m sure others can suggest things we know about that need doing.
The Solution
The answer is, of course, for HMG to get a grip, HM’s Loyal Opposition to behave responsibly and the MSM to grow up. Then we can address known threats, not ignore them.
Don’t hold your breath.
Great article Julian.
I like your pragmatism, “designing ingenious ways of breaking open the great resource that is billions and billions of human bodies”.
And “we’re killing third world paupers to send each other virtue signals”.
There are two thoughts, well three, which I would add.
Inflation would, I agree, be expected to go through the roof. One, to establish new enterprise and then to repay the debt and damage by lockdown. But who will have the money to pay for products at inflated prices?
One’s own defenses are important. There is not enough talk of personal responsibility for the ability of one’s own immune system. One of the changes I see coming is far more awareness of health and immune protection. Reliability on an ‘all protecting NHS’ will be gone. Those who see what has happened will be far more proactive and self-reliant.
The third would be cynicism. Yes the figures are useless. Where those on the front line must be commended, virtue signalling is everywhere, yet we have been let down. When this is over there will be some questions to be answered.
The projected figures are horrendous I know but given the poor recording, reporting and managing of this pandemic some grounding must be needed and rational thinking made. We have no idea really what the final figures will be, so I take caution in saying, at the moment the death rates, either monthly or weekly, are not greatly up on previous years if not below past years. We will see, but worth keeping an eye on.
They will have to kill me before I have a vaccination imposed on me. I do not trust ‘the powers that be’ one little bit but would respect all your own opinions. An individual call.
Finally the environment is important. Hauwei, sorry I mean, ‘while we’, are undergoing a viral pandemic a communications system is being rolled out that has lots and lots empirical evidence of danger to human health and immunity. To me this is a very strange combination or let us say a coincidence. What I find also worrying is that instead of hearing civilised debate there appears to be a lot of hate, bigotry, and censorship, a sure sign of something to hide.
So instead of Cygnus what did we get ?? daydreaming about big spend on mental health including reverse transgender counselling.
theres madness out there, and I know where to find it.
The next one is on its way already. Currency turmoil..
Although the economic costs will be colossal, they will be balanced by release of dead pensioners pensions payments, and the release of the principal. As well as the reduction of government costs of state pensions. Add a cull, and a reduction of insurance and pension risk , add strengthened population microcontrol, and everyones a winner…. Well a few.
https://lockdownsceptics.org/
Toby Young (who has the virus himself) thinks a lockdown extension was not what to do next.
Spot on Julian, I enjoyed this ! – My agreement is so total that there is little to add ! ….. What’s the betting that our MSM who have been so anti BoJo for the lack of preparation for this pandemic, will, when the costs come to light, blame BoJo for the over reaction of turning Exhibition Centres into emergency hospital space, especially if some of that space was not used ? – But criticising in hind sight is all the MSM is good for today !
Been to so many emergency planning meetings when all the very ‘clever’ people were either falling over themselves trying to score points , planning more away days for either multi-agency or inter departmental or company emergency response. In the main several things were apparent, ‘sorry old boy , you are to near the fire’, Oh surely not that will never happen’ or best of all ‘I don’t believe that ‘ conversations went back and forth, at the end of the meeting all the ‘partners’ went away convinced that somebody else was responsible for what had been decided’
These people mostly were only interested in the process, in the event emergency response was piecemeal and usually a total shambles. nothing has changed ‘ no lessons have been learned ‘ we now have poor decision making by over promoted leaders, and millennial managers whose only response has been knee jerk decisions based on what the media thinks which has resulted in their favourite pass time , the blame game’ and throwing other peoples money at the problem. Have I got news for you it ‘ain’t working guys’ you were warned and warned and chose to ignore experienced advice and evidence , you ain’t seen nothing yet, wait until the financial firestorm hits, no amount of faux emotion and virtue signalling is going to solve that. Spot on article Julian could not agree more.
The only way the country can be changed is by reform of committees.. Committees are the evil, the cancer at the heart of our society. They DO NOT WORK AS HOPED or IMAGINED. As Julius found. Our cabinet, a gathering of 150 slippery dishonest opportunists is just a bigger control mechanism for the party . For.. which purpose it works. for the party.
Committees need regularising with their stated purposes. eg Gathering data, Disemination of data, Cohesion, even .
I am not an expert at this, I’m not even sure if there are any books; it’s just experience, and I’m not a committee person. Just do it or else. We are a committee mad country And Committees should never have power. But they do, if they can.
A good article. Whilst C19 is doing it’s stuff, we are wide open to other threats. There is no rule that means we only have to face one crisis at a time. Right now two US Carrier Strike Groups are effectively out of commission due to C19, our own armed forces are suffering large levels of sickness and of course nearly all heavy industry in the West has stopped. China, lest we forget, has a leader with absolute power vast industrial might, unlimited energy and mineral resources and the largest armed forces on the planet.
China also has ambitions in the Pacific / Taiwan / and a series of reclaimed islands and atolls within the disputed ‘nine dash line’ that are unsinkable fortresses. If it were to strike now the US and the West could do very little in response. If we can’t make a million paper surgical masks in a month, what hope of facing down the PLA ( Chinese ) forces ?
Now that might sound paranoid, but China is the apex predator at the moment and we have to watch out. Killer whales eat seals. We cannot afford to shut down industry and invite a catastrophic recession to save 50000 lives, 30000 of whom would have died this year anyway. That sounds callous but that’s the reality of it . We have to keep going and end ‘lockdown’ very fast or we will be the predated seals.
Get this wrong and we will all be eating bat soup and pangolin in a years time.
You missed the root cause of these very serious issues/problems. That is population. There are too many people all wanting too much.
Maybe the corona virus will solve that problem.
The UK population was falling nicely until we got mass immigration (which only benefits the already wealthy.)
Spot on, Harry. Sir David Attenborough and others have been banging on for decades about unsustainable population levels (relative to biocapacity). One way to recoup a tiny part of the awful financial cost of this eminently foreseeable pandemic is to stop subsidising people to reproduce.
So you reduce the birth rate, who is eventually going to pay the pensions of an increasing aged population, more and more of which will be from ex government workers?
Maybe the solution is Vit C and supplements. We fall ill from poor nutrition, toxicity (contaminated air, water, food, cosmetics, furnishings, radiation), physical impact (fall under bus) but I’ve never heard of anyone falling ill for lack of a pharmaceutical product. Perhaps we should all pay more attention to mother nature than to big pharma?
Excellent Julian.
TPTB are not bothered, And that is what I mean. They actually do not have to bother. Every last bit of energy is on survival. Who might destroy them. The Media or the Labour partys’ tame media. That is it.
We all know that. Commerce can create a market for anything. It does not have to work, or be new, or Shiny ( Although it helps ),
Just pay the media one way or another.
I used to be amazed at the way the owners, directors, etc of a failing company would continue to fight each other as the company dies under them. All convinced they had some magical quality.
That’s what is happening to Britain. That’s what happened to ukip.