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Taking care of care homes?

The Leader of the Opposition, Keir Starmer, was right to question the Prime Minister on Care Home deaths. Our loved ones in care homes should have been kept safe. 

A new report today finds that the number of people dying from COVID-19 in care homes is double the figure given by the government.

The government's advice up to 13th March was that there were unlikely to be infections in care homes. This conclusion could not have been based on scientific advice. 



What logic were they applying?


There is no reasoning in science why a virus would behave differently because it is in a care home! A virus has no idea it is in a care home!

Did they think older people were immune if they were in care homes?

The government was slow to understand the problem we faced, slow to act, and still refuses to publish the advice it receives.

The consequence in our care homes has been catastrophic.

The government should come out of its self-congratulatory mode and start listening. The jingoistic bluster about being 'the best' should stop.

If there is to be a consensus on the way forward, then the government should stop the manipulation of statistics and be transparent about the problems we face.


In coming out of lockdown, the government is now advising people to wear masks. Previously, they had peddled the view that there was no evidence for their benefit. Yet, it was always plausible that they would help in reducing the spread of the virus, and the evidence that it would be so was available.

It is plausible that we might have slowed the spread more effectively had the government advice on masks been different.

Science can inform common sense. The two go hand in hand. Science rarely gives an exact answer. It is more often considering the plausibility of ideas rather than their absolute certainty.


Almost all the scientific advice used by the government is about plausible outcomes.

The government should now give clearer advice and instruction about wearing masks to help keep people safe as we move out of lockdown.

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