Jeremy Hunt's 5th November 2020 Response to Jeremy Daines' email on 2nd November 2020

From: Jeremy HUNT 

Sent: 05 November 2020 10:21

To: Jeremy Daines

Subject: RE: Letter from your constituent Jeremy Daines on 2 Nov 2020 Regarding the impending lockdown

Dear Jeremy and family, 

Thank you for your emails and I'm sorry you feel this way. I completely understand your frustration regarding the situation we find ourselves in - no one wanted a second lockdown and the government has only introduced one very reluctantly. I do though support its introduction. I don't agree that it would be possible to completely shield the old and vulnerable from the virus whilst letting everyone else go about their daily business. All the evidence shows that if the virus spreads in younger age groups it eventually reaches older ones. Even if it was possible I don't think it would be the right thing to do from a moral or ethical point of view. Are we really saying that we'd prefer to shut everyone over 65 plus those with underlying conditions away from the rest of society so we can enjoy our lives. Imagine if the virus effected 20-40 year olds or a certain ethnic minority and I don't think people would be pushing for that option even if it were possible. 

As you know, I have been, from the start, a strong advocate for mass testing and track and trace, as the way to combat the virus and stop the spread. As Chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, I have pushed the government on this over and over, and I will continue to do so. As it currently stands, a mass testing system is not yet in place and the virus is spreading rapidly. The first lockdown proved to be effective, but we always knew a second wave was likely. Like many, I had hoped this could be avoided, but at this stage we must accept that this is necessary.

No one wanted a second lockdown and I believe we must use the time it will buy us to ensure we don't need another one again. That is why in my speech to Parliament earlier this week I outlined what I think we need to do to ensure that this is the last lockdown we need to impose. You can watch that speech here JeremyHunt'sSpeech

I know that the next month will be tough for everyone but I hope the government can use the time it will give us to improve the approval process for drugs, fix the contact tracing system, introduce weekly testing for NHS staff, and outline a roadmap to mass population testing. Doing these things will mean we don't have to return to living under lockdowns.

Best wishes,

Jeremy Hunt

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From: Jeremy Daines 

Sent: 02 November 2020 15:22

To: Jeremy HUNT

Subject: RE: Letter from your constituent Jeremy Daines on 2 Nov 2020 Regarding the impending lockdown

Mr Hunt,

With your extensive experience you have probably recognised that the issue of the lockdown is one where sitting on the fence, or blindly supporting the government, is not doing the correct thing for the country.

The correct choice for the country is not another hugely expensive, damaging lockdown.

It is time to stand up for the blatantly obvious and, in the process start the renewal of the Conservative Party, well in-time for the next election.

Competence is in very short supply and the sooner this is addressed the better it will be for the country & government.

Be bold, don’t sit on the fence or keep digging the hole the government refuses to see themselves in.

Regards,

Jeremy Daines

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From: Jeremy Daines

Sent: 02 November 2020 13:27

To: Jeremy HUNT 

Subject: Impending Lockdown in England

Dear Mr Hunt,

In my email to you back on the 7th May I ended the note by saying “the writing is on the wall” for this government.

That line has now been crossed and you cannot now count on the Daines family’s support at the next election.

We don’t know what the actual advice the CSO & CMO are providing to the government; however, we can surmise from the media that it is version-2 of “Protect the NHS”; driven by fear of deaths as a result of the apparent rise in Covid infections.

Back in March it was the same; “Protect the NHS”, which everyone except, apparently the government, now knows from experience, is the wrong approach.

The government has spent £200+ Billion pounds ostensibly protecting the NHS, trying to save lives and actually failing!  The actual cost is vastly higher than the £200 Billion spent, as we all know.

So, the plan is now to repeat the same approach and spend another £200 Billion, over the winter, for a better result?

As I described to you back in April, the most effective approach is to focus government resources on preventing the vulnerable from getting infected for the entire duration of the pandemic (not just the summer); thereby preventing a surge of patients swamping the NHS.

SAGE, in their unsubstantiated wisdom, say this cannot be achieved.  Since when did a group of specialist scientists become policy experts?  SAGE’s protect the vulnerable approach (which they call “Segmentation”) is not realistic and never would be; however, there are numerous easy ways to reduce the probability of infection for the vulnerable, which would not cost huge amounts of money.

I reiterate a message I made to you before: SAGE is not fit for purpose, neither is the CSO.

To illustrate how simple it is to grasp: Would you prefer to spend £200 to £300+ Billion supporting the economy during lockdowns of 60+ million people (not including the huge cost of excess deaths, decimated businesses, mental & physical health) or £50 Billion in order to prevent the approximately 500,000 vulnerable people (according to Imperial College, back in March) from getting infected?

Hopefully a GCSE in common sense helps point towards the obvious answer?

Both the scientific advice and policymaking has been woeful.

If such advice and policies had been implemented in the business world, the company would be bankrupt and the Directors barred from running a company in the future.

It would be interesting to know what the government actually did to prepare the NHS for the winter season.  What estimated hospitalisation rates were used to put in-place the resources in order to cope with the winter?

Can you obtain all the details on what the NHS has done to expand capacity ahead of the winter?

From Ministers’ utterances it appears the NHS is predicted to be swamped by mid November so the inference is that the government hasn’t increased capacity during the summer or autumn?

Or if it has, it clearly wasn’t enough. So, either way another failure leading to yet another lockdown.

It shouldn’t be difficult to see why we have no confidence in the government’s ability to manage these issues.  In the spring there were valid mitigations; but this winter, there are none.

Regards,

The Daines Family