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“The NHS saved my life, no question,” Boris Johnson said earlier this month, publicly thanking Britain’s beloved National Health Service for successfully treating him for Covid-19 over a seven-day period in early April. “It’s hard to find words to express my debt,” the prime minister said, naming several nurses, and thanking two in particular for standing by his bedside for 48 hours when “things could’ve gone either way.” Johnson’s speech, which he might have hoped would be lauded for its graciousness, served instead as a reminder that the NHS is a success despite him. When the first cases of Covid-19 in the U.K. were confirmed in late January, Johnson’s Conservative Party government claimed that it was prepared for any eventuality. That turns out to have been a lie. The government’s failure to provide sufficient protective gear, which has so far contributed to the deaths of at least 114 health care workers in Britain, was preventable. Moreover, two separate investigations have now revealed high-level attempts to cover it up.

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In March, South Korea, Taiwan, and even small Indian states like Kerala had showed how democratic societies, working doggedly, could use a dedicated World Health Organization-approved program of contact tracing, testing, and isolation to contain the virus. Some experts said that given how long it might take to develop a vaccine — as long as five years, perhaps — such a program was the only realistic way forward. New Zealand’s Jacinda Arden and Germany’s Angela Merkel also employed these tools early on; by acting quickly, they saved lives. These countries’ successful actions were presented to Johnson on a platter. The U.K. had a head start over many others — as much as nine weeks, according to one expert, or the time between human to human virus transmission being confirmed in China and the U.K.’s first known case of local transmission on February 29. But busy with Britain’s departure from the EU on January 31, Johnson ignored every warning and squandered every opportunity to protect his country. Born and bred into the idea that he was exceptional, he endangered himself along with millions of Britons, many of whom imbibed his magical thinking. On March 16, organizers of the four-day Cheltenham Festival, a horse racing event, cited Johnson’s presence at the rugby match earlier that month as the reason to go ahead with their event, noting that “the government guidance is for the business of the country to continue as usual.” The races attracted some 250,000 people over four days, many of whom have since tested positive for the virus. The hospitals in Gloucestershire, the county where Cheltenham is located, are now among the hardest-hit in the country. The government also left borders open, allowing flights from Italy, China, and the U.S. without any quarantine restrictions until late this month, long after most other countries had begun to quarantine arrivals. On Johnson’s watch, the U.K. is a staggering example of what not to do.

The rising death toll in Britain, for which Johnson is personally responsible, makes it impossible to believe anything he says moving forward. To believe him could mean endangering your own life and the lives of your loved ones. In the absence of trustworthy leadership, people are being forced to make critical decisions alone. This daily struggle is taking place in the midst of another calamity — an economy that was already severely damaged as a result of Brexit is now crumbling due to the pandemic. The UK economy will shrink by 6.8 per cent as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, and it will take three years to recover. Despite this, the U.K.’s chief Brexit negotiator has made it clear that he will not seek an extension on the December 31 deadline to reach a trade agreement with the EU. If no agreement is reached, the country will be forced to revert to World Trade Organization terms, making it liable for tariffs and border controls that will further strain the economy. This is something Britain can ill afford. Just three weeks after the nationwide lockdown began on March 23, more than 1.5 million Britons were facing food insecurity, according to a study; this figure includes 53 percent of NHS workers. The study also said that 830,000 children could be going without the free school meals on which they relied because the government had failed to keep yet another promise — to feed children in need during the lockdown.

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The current crisis has been a decade in the making. Johnson and his Tory colleagues have spent years undermining the NHS, using the excuse of austerity measures to cut salaries and reduce benefits, when in reality they appear to have been trying to push the country toward a U.S.-style private health care system. In 2011, five Tory members of parliament, three of whom are now ministers in Johnson’s government, published a pamphlet advocating for privatization. According to a Guardian investigation, private firms were given contracts worth £15 billion, about $18 billion, a jump of 89 percent since 2015. In the years that followed, Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, scrapped nursing grants, which help nurses with study and living costs, and rejected salary increases, voting to keep nurses’ salaries below the rate of inflation. Johnson, and virtually every other member of the Conservative Party, voted with May and cheered after the votes were announced. May explained the decision to a nurse’s face, saying in her typically bloodless way: “There isn’t a magic money tree we can shake.” In 2016, the Tory-led Brexit referendum poisoned the atmosphere for EU citizens in the U.K. so much that more than 11,000 immigrant NHS workers, including 4,763 nurses, went back home. “It’s the National Health Service, not the International Health Service,” Matt Hancock, Johnson’s health minister, sneered on Twitter at the time. The outcome of Hancock’s shortsightedness was revealed last month, when he was reduced to begging retired health workers, including those in their 70s and 80s who are most vulnerable to the virus, to return to work to boost staff numbers. (Hancock contracted the coronavirus in March.) One of the emergency hospitals he helped set up to deal with Covid-19 has remained largely empty for lack of nursing staff.