Wales unprepared for the second wave

Two million people in lockdown, virtually the whole of South Wales from Llanelli to Newport and two thirds of the Welsh population – the second wave has arrived.

The Welsh government has announced strict restrictions on people’s movements, but only as far as their personal lives are concerned. If they are involved in making money for other people then the restrictions do not apply.

So while people are barred from visiting their relatives in their houses they can meet them in the pub (one comment was ““Don’t go to other people’s houses – make sure you only see them when five pints under down the local”.”) While people are not allowed to travel outside their county or outside Llanelli to see friends or go for a walk they are allowed to travel to work on crowded buses.

But still the government cannot sort out mass testing, crucial to bringing the Covid crisis under control.

Welsh government follows UK Tories

The Welsh Labour government has gained some credibility because it has been somewhat more careful to control coronavirus transmission than the Boris Johnson Tory government in Westminster. But Johnson has set a very low bar – probably the lowest bar in the world. According to the Financial Times only Italy and Spain had a worse Covid death rate in the first wave and the UK will have the biggest drop in GDP of all the OECD advanced economies.

The Welsh government has followed a parallel path to the Johnson government in all areas of this crisis. The lockdown to stop the spread of the disease came too late, leading to a more prolonged suppression of the economy. The care homes were abandoned leaving residents and workers unprotected from the ravages of the disease. PPE was not provided to NHS, care and other key workers when it was needed.

Necessary testing was not available despite the WHO call to “Test, test, test”. Deidre Hine, the former chief medical officer, told the BBC “I could not understand why governments moved away from test, track and isolate – that is the basis for the control of any infectious disease. They could have got it up and running much faster. University labs and private labs were volunteering and were being turned away.”

The schools were re-opened at the same time by both governments and a new spike in infections in Welsh schools was only avoided by head teachers effectively ignoring the government’s call for a full re-opening of schools and only admitting small numbers of pupils at a time.

The Welsh government used the same algorithm to mark down A level results disproportionately affecting working class students and then u-turned at roughly the same time as the UK government under pressure from a mass movement of schools students.

Then the Welsh government followed the Johnson government by forcing the opening of schools for the new term without the necessary investment in safety, cleaning and testing facilities in the fanciful hope that pupils would not be able to transmit the virus to each other and to teachers. The resulting rise in infections was entirely predictable – and was predicted.

This was matched by the call for students to return to universities by all the governments of the UK even though they would be taught online. The only credible explanation for this ludicrous policy that has led to thousands of students being virtually imprisoned in their halls ready to access online lectures, was that the universities would have lost money as students did not take up university accommodation or deferred their courses for a year.

Testing fiasco

And contributing to all these mistakes is the same testing fiasco in Wales as in England. In March the Welsh government, faced with a lack of testing capacity agreed to use the UK government Lighthouse Labs programme to carry out tests. It ignored the offer from public labs to carry out tests for the government.

The Lighthouse programme was set up by the Tory government awarding lucrative contracts to their friends in big business to companies like Deloitte, an accountancy firm and Serco, convicted of defrauding the government in previous public sector contracts. Scientists visiting the labs have been surprised at the low numbers of staff in the labs. Its failure was virtually guaranteed.

The Welsh government has claimed to avoid privatising public services and using PFI schemes. But this claim is very weak indeed as many NHS facilities, leisure centres, libraries and care homes have been privatised. So the turn to the private sector via the UK government to carry out the most important public health task in 100 years was hardly a surprise – as was the fiasco that has followed.

Under pressure the Welsh government has attempted to rectify the Lighthouse disaster by scaling up the provision of government labs – 30% of tests are now carried out by public labs. But they are under such pressure that only 65% of test results from these labs are returned within 24 hours – prompt results are crucial to the success of contact tracing.

A fully-functioning test and trace system would have made a safe return to work, school and university much easier and made a lockdown unnecessary. New cases of infection could have been identified promptly and people isolated before they could transmit it to others, forcing the famous R rate right down and squeezing the infection out of society.

“We” are to blame

The Welsh government, like the UK government, has attempted to deflect attention from its failings by pinning the blame on us for the second wave. Ordinary people are to blame for breaking social distancing, visiting each other’s houses, going to the pubs that are open, going on trips to Yorkshire etc.

The rules and restrictions are complicated, inconsistent and constantly changing so its small wonder that people have broken the ‘rules’ when it is unclear what they are. And the constant exhortations to get out, work and spend money in the hospitality industry adds to the confusion. As The Socialist points out: “you can meet up, but only if there is a till!” After months of being locked-down many people are understandably desperate to get out and enjoy themselves egged on by the same governments that condemn them for breaking social distancing.

The constant changes and inconsistencies in the rules are a result of the governments trying to get people back to work under pressure from business who do not care about people’s health – all that matters is that they are able to keep their profits flowing.

Schools

Central to this effort has been the pressure from big business to re-open the schools to provide childcare to allow workers to work. ‘Experts’ have been wheeled out to explain that not only do children not suffer from the disease, they are virtually immune from transmitting it. The Welsh government seems to believe its own propaganda. The outbreaks in schools and the need to send home whole year groups has not dented the government’s belief in this mantra because it is crucial to getting workers back in work.

Schools should have only returned when it was safe to do so. Socialist teachers demanded first and foremost a comprehensive test and trace system to be put in place. New temporary classrooms and outdoor learning areas need to be built and supply teachers taken on, together with retired and ex teachers to ensure small class units – there is simply not the space in our overcrowded schools to allow small bubbles and social distancing (see article). The use of blended learning would have allowed smaller class groups. Cleaning had to be intensified and carried out by properly trained cleaners and washing facilities massively expanded.

The government had the whole summer to put these into place but it would have required a large public investment. Instead the Welsh government has calculated that the risk to the lives of school staff, pupils and their families – and the risk of new spikes in community transmission was not worth the cost of preventing it.

In further education colleges the picture is the same. The Welsh government has never  issued guidance on class sizes, allowing college bosses to decide what is safe and then to claim “college is following WG guidance”. So adults are being crammed into groups of over 30 in some cases making social distancing impossible.

Imprisoned in university halls

Students in university have been encouraged to return to crowded halls and houses but are being blamed for a rise in infection rate. The fault is entirely that of the governments and university authorities. The UK government’s scientific advisors in SAGE warned that re-opening the universities would lead to significant coronavirus outbreaks. Modelling indicated that as many as 75% of students on any campus could catch the disease. But the UK government, the Welsh government and university bosses have pushed for a reckless return to campus learning.

A university worker writing in The Socialist points out: “They are terrified that uncertainty and restrictions around coronavirus will mean many students defer their place, leaving universities financially ruined. The government has refused to underwrite or ‘bail out’ universities which get into financial difficulty due to reduced numbers. Consequently, university bosses, similar to the big business bosses, have crossed their fingers and taken an ‘optimistic approach’. In reality, this means ignoring mounting evidence and planning for a ‘best case’ scenario.”

The universities are earning millions of pounds keeping students locked up in their halls, prevented from returning home and forced to remain in small rooms with little natural light, dwindling food supplies and accessing lectures on-line – academic prison. The Welsh government has allowed the profit motive of the universities to override the interests of students. The universities in Wales have not even used their own facilities to test their students, which would have at least allowed the virus to be isolated and the restrictions on students mitigated.

Meanwhile university bosses have been pressurising staff to work in unsafe conditions. Many of the casualised workforce have not been re-employed to save money. This is the result when higher education becomes profit-driven. The whole labour movement must support any action taken by university workers in UCU and other unions who take action to ensure safety measures.

Aberystwyth University has been forced to cancel face to face teaching and its likely that other universities will do the same. Already many students feel they are being ripped off calling their courses “the world’s most expensive streaming service” and “nine grand Netflix”. But university education should be free in any case, as the huge support for  Corbyn’s call for the abolition of fees showed.

We must prevent any attempt by the university employers or the government to set students against staff. If the governments and universities had taken the correct measures then safe teaching would have been properly organised.

Socialist Students Wales has called for health and safety committees to be established in every university made up of elected reps of students and staff to discuss the measures need to protect health and to ensure that students and staff have reasonable living and working conditions.

Failures of the Welsh government

The crisis has exposed the inadequacy of the Welsh Labour government. Its failure to fight Tory cuts and to actually implement the cuts to the NHS and public services in Wales has continued with implementing Tory policies in the Covid crisis that have led to one of the worst results in Europe with one of the highest death rates and the biggest fall in GDP.

And working class people in Wales are expected to pay the price – a high death rate, harsh lockdown conditions, a looming economic catastrophe. Whichever of the main parties form the next government after the Senedd elections next year they will expect the Welsh working class to foot the bill for their incompetence.

Working people in Wales needs a new socialist direction that mobilises working people to overcome the crisis and to fight for socialist policies.

Socialist Party Wales demands:

• For a massive investment by the Welsh government in test and trace with publicly-owned and accountable test centres and labs replacing the failed Lighthouse Lab scheme. Re-open public labs closed by cuts. Ensure 24 hour test results are available to all who need them.
• All who are forced to isolate to be supported on full pay.
• In schools – weekly onsite testing of staff and a return to blended learning with no classes larger than fifteen and government resources to help home learning
• In universities refund students their fees, cancel hall rents and allow students to return home if they wish. For free education.
• Workers’ control of workplace safety
• Stop the the privatisation of the NHS and public services under cover of Covid
• Fight for the extension of the furlough scheme on full pay. Nationalise firms threatening redundancies.