Saturday 17 October:

The number of coronavirus cases and deaths have sharply increased over the past month - in fact, the current daily number of cases (some 20,000) is getting on for THREE times higher than the HIGHEST daily figures from March-September (just let that sink in).
I really don’t envy ANY government in these challenging times but, thinking back to those early days back in March, when a virtual ‘lockdown’ was imposed on the entire country, people generally backed the restrictions and there was a strong sense of ‘unity in a time of crisis’. Since then, of course, the government has come under an enormous amount of criticism on a long list of matters: its slowness to react; the ill-judged/illegal actions of Dominique Cummings on his trip (or trips?) to Durham; the lack of appropriate equipment; the lack of an adequate regime for testing, tracing and isolating; issuing contracts to ‘friendly’ companies without competition; making up the rules on local lockdowns without consulting regional leaders and health authorities; universities and colleges (students/halls of residences/number of positive cases); all the mixed messages; and now ignoring the advice of its scientific advisors etc etc.
You might recall that the prime minister unveiled a plan in July to return England to “normality” by Christmas… and he also indicated that it might “be possible to move away from the social distancing measures” by November. Well, it doesn’t seem to have quite worked out like that… and, of course, Mr Johnson will claim that the reason it hasn’t is all down to US… nothing to do with him! Meanwhile, consensus has disintegrated and there’s distinct sense of “they’re making things up as they go along”… and opinion polls indicate that the public has lost confidence in the government.
Clearly, the coronavirus virus has cost the UK a HUGE amount of money over the past seven months but, for the life of me, I still can’t understand how we haven’t yet managed to come up with a reliable, speedy, efficient mass testing programme (and why aren’t people being checked for the virus on a regular basis?)?
PS: And, meanwhile, Mr Johnson is telling us we’re going to end up with a no-deal Brexit (and, of course, he’s blaming it all on the EU!).
Image: Chris Riddell’s cartoon from last Sunday’s ‘Observer’.