In the following column for Biddulph Nub News, Biddulph town and district Cllr Connor Brady takes the Government to task for its response to the Coronavirus pandemic.

No amount of 50%-off meals can cover the fact that over 55,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the UK. The Government has completely and utterly failed during this crisis to keep us safe.

When you look at the sheer number of people who have died during the pandemic it really does show the woeful response from the Conservative Government.

As of the 10th August the UK had the highest reported death toll of any country in the EU27. Our reported death toll at a 44,000 is far higher than Italy, who were hit first, at 35,000, above France and Spain on 30,000 and 29,000 respectively.

Then you can look globally. As of the 10th August, the UK was 4th in the world for reported death toll, with only US, Brazil, and Mexico having more deaths. It's even more stark when compared to the death toll in New Zealand, where only 22 people have died of Covid-19. Although their population is far smaller.

In South Korea, who have a closer population size to us, they have only had 326 deaths. Compounding this is the fact that our GDP hit was the worst in Europe with a 20.4% GDP fall. The UK has somehow been able to be the most incompetent in Europe with the worst excess death in Europe and the worst recession too.

So why is that and how could it have been avoided? First was the lockdown. Up to three weeks before the lockdown people were crying out for a lockdown similar to countries across Europe like Italy.

People could see Italy's number of cases when they had locked down and how it was spiralling out of control weeks later. Prof Neil Ferguson said that "had we introduced lockdown a week earlier we'd have reduced the final death toll by at least half". The bundling of this crisis, by waiting those extra weeks has likely cost over 20,000 people their lives.

What about masks? In Singapore there were 385 cases by late March when 14 day "stay at home" notices were issued for new arrivals. Their lockdown starting in early April and by mid-April masks were made compulsory everywhere outside of the home, including outdoors.

The government created hundreds of pick up point for all citizens to collect a free washable mask if they wished. Due to this, by mid-May they had reduced the spread of the virus to very low community cases, but still waited until early June to start to ease out of lockdown.

In the UK we have only made masks compulsory in some scenarios about 5 months too late, whilst our lockdown has been relaxed regardless of the R rate rising above 1 in places. People discuss the global supply for masks being a reason that we hadn't made them mandatory. How come other countries Governments can get a supply but ours cannot?

Singapore also had a "world beating" test and trace system. Not only did every citizen coming into Singapore have to isolate for 14 days, they closed the borders to all non-citizens in order to reduce the spread.

Their test, trace, and isolate system meant that people were being temperature checked when entering shops and restaurants and it included checking in and out of supermarkets, restaurants, café's and pharmacies by scanning a barcode. This provided contact details to every shop entered so that they could be tracked back if there was a case of Covid in any location.

At only 27 deaths from Covid, Singapore was ready for the virus. All this whilst we were still letting in people from countries across the world without even requiring them to self-isolate. That is all before you even get into the absolutely disgraceful treatment of care homes leading to Covid running through care homes killing thousands.

In the Staffordshire Moorlands 73 people have lost their lives. The government's austerity program removed any stockpiling the NHS could do, meaning there was no preparation for an outbreak. Then the government was slow to respond to the changing world with a late lockdown costing thousands of lives.

The incompetence and lack of care for people has meant that far too many members of our community have lost loved ones when it was so avoidable. We should never accept the way people have died during this pandemic, because it didn't have to be this way.

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