Join the Fabian International Policy Group and the Young Fabians for a topical event comparing the different international Covid responses and how they reflect on the UK with the new Shadow Home Secretary.

Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_3fHp8agxQQG5dNWMJqxWnw

With the highest death toll in Europe, a racing festival attended by quarter of a million people right after the WHO declared a global pandemic, contact testing and tracing abandoned and no quarantine for 100,000 arrivals to the UK since lockdown, the public and opposition is rightfully asking questions about the adequacy of the government's response.

There has been a wide spectrum of different countermeasures implemented across the globe, from Russia's digital pass system and jail sentences for lockdown violation, Serbia's police enforced curfew, Orban’s (Hungary) exploitation of the crisis to consolidate power, New Zealand's elimination approach and Germany's rapid increase in testing capacity. NZ, Greece, Finland, Norway, Germany and Iceland’s responses among others have been widely praised, whilst the UK’s efficacy has been seriously called into question.

Gloves have been counted separately to make up PPE numbers, as nurses speaking out online are gagged. The government has refused four separate opportunities to join the EU PPE scheme and Boris has missed five Cobra meetings. Britons were told not to go to pubs, yet they were allowed to stay open. The strategy was ‘herd immunity’, and then we U turned. After people were returned to care homes to increase hospital bed space, care home deaths have not only skyrocketed, but been deceptively misrecorded in official figures.

There are calls for an inquiry into the inconsistency of this strategy, and we look forward to discussing the comparison of the UK’s response to other countries', as well as Labour’s response in scrutinising the government.

Interlocutor: Cecilia Eve, Policy Advisor, Fabian IPG & Environment Committees

Timing:
7:00-7:45 Opening remarks, discussion
7:45-8:30 Q & A, Policy