We have to keep up the pressure for action over the pandemic, argues Covid patient Kevin Potter.

I have been double vaccinated, but currently am very ill from Covid 19. 

It is truly horrible. My son has had no vaccine, and went to bed with a headache. Symptoms/outcomes may be statistically less severe in minors (but in theory we are having it mild with the jab, and it is awful) but, when real, the stats seem rather cold, we are frightened!

We are two years into this virus, for the entire time our Tory government have put profit before life and wellbeing. Letting the virus rip through the population, with a death toll amongst the worst in the world, and climbing. They have pinned everything on the vaccine because it is compatible with market logic and rejected every other measure until too late. They have, and continue, to ignore scientific advice where it affects the wheels of profit. 

For weeks now, medical professionals, scientists, trade unions and the public have been saying that we need to move to plan B in order to avoid compoundng the Tory economic winter with one in which the NHS is overwhelmed. They have done nothing, not even re-enforcement of masks in indoor public spaces. 

They are aided by a supine and compliant media, who have all but ceased to report on Covid, as if it has gone away, as if there are not still hundreds dying each week. As if there aren’t thousands of families, like mine, riven with illness, unable to work (and in my case losing the only short break we away we had been able to afford this year). The entire effort has been to convince us that everything is fine, to return to normal (meaning as workers and consumers), when it is at present palpably not safe. In that climate I do not blame people.

I am, as friends know, as critical and questioning as it gets in terms of our Tory and capitalist masters, but even I have been drawn in a little. We all want it to be over and the illusion that it is, is entrancing. But it is a dangerous illusion. Mortality rates have fallen vastly with the vaccine yes (though remain significant) but believe me, it is still possible to get unpleasantly ill. Hospitalisations are soaring and infection rates are climbing fast at present. 

As we move into winter the NHS, already struggling from Tory neglect, will not cope with a surge of Covid admissions, leading to increased mortality in general. 

The other function of this illusion being cast upon us, is to make us forget, as if in some lotus dream, that the Tories are responsible for the worst death toll our nation has ever known in peace time. 

A Covid toll orders of magnitude worse than most other nations. We passed 250k at the start of the year, and deaths have continued daily, but we no longer hear about that. Right now the Tories are repeating the willful refusal to put public health ahead of profit, again gambling with the NHS and our lives. All to keep the gravy train, that has never run past our doors, moving. They are responsible for unforgiveable social murder and we must NEVER forget. 

Covid has been a boom time for the rich, our govt have filtered billions into private hands, Dido Harding’s failed track and trace, failed PPE commisions…But we now pay with NI increases, UBI cuts… while the rich are handed further tax breaks. A sick joke. As Tory willful neglect looks set to deliver another winter Covid crisis, they have withdrawn all support for workers, for tenants…If you get ill and lose your job, lose your home, have to choose between heating and eating, the illusion that everything is fine will have little sustenance to offer.