Covid-19: The Law did not evaporate on 31st December 2019

Apart from on this blog, a reader interested in the legal context of the management of the Covid-19 epidemics in the UK and in Scotland might be forgiven for imagining that the Law has never had anything to say about governmental duties with respect to Covid-19 or that any such governmental duties with respect to Covid-19 evaporated on 31st December 2019.

The Law did not evaporate on 31st December 2019.

The Law has much to say with respect to governmental duties in relation to infectious disease, not least when it may arise in the context of, or cause, an emergency, and when it may cause deaths, particularly when it may cause deaths on a large scale.

In this post I simply wish to draw attention to the Laws which I believe to apply to the management of the UK Covid-19 epidemic by the UK Government and to the management of the Covid-19 epidemic in Scotland by the Scottish Government.

At a United Kingdom level the following pieces of Law seem to me to have direct relevance to how the UK Government has managed the Covid-19 epidemic in the UK:

• Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights
• The Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984
• The Civil Contingencies Act 2004

In Scotland the following pieces of Law seem to me to have direct relevance to how the UK and Scottish Governments have managed the Covid-19 epidemic in Scotland:

• Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights
• The Public Health etc (Scotland) Act 2008
• The Civil Contingencies Act 2004

As will be apparent from previous posts on this blog, my view is that both the UK Government and Scottish Government have failed abjectly in protecting the public from Covid-19, that all Covid-19 deaths in the UK and in Scotland were avoidable and the abject governmental failures arose from a failure by the UK Government and/or the Scottish Government to act in accordance with the requirements of the applicable Law.

It seems to me that Boris Johnson has committed serious criminal offences with respect to how Covid-19 was managed in the UK. Not least among those offences contrary to the Law of England and Wales, in my estimation, is Gross Negligence Manslaughter (tens of thousands of counts).

Similarly, it seems to me that in Scotland, Boris Johnson's failures may constitute Culpable Homicide.

Notwithstanding the serious failures by Boris Johnson and the UK Government and the circumstances which those UK Government failures occasioned it seems to me that Nicola Sturgeon has also committed serious offences contrary to Scots Law.

The offences which I believe Nicola Sturgeon should be prosecuted for include Breach of Duty and Culpable Homicide.

In addition to these matters of criminal Law it seems to me that both the UK Government and the Scottish Government acted negligently, opening both Governments to law suits by businesses which have been damaged by governmental negligence.

Each of the foregoing matters raises complex legal issues and questions.

In future posts I hope to examine in more detail some of those issues and questions.

Criminal liability for the Covid-19 epidemic in the United Kingdom - the simplistic version

In this post I want to set out briefly why I believe there is good reason to suspect that serious criminal offences have been committed by, among others, Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon.

Each had (and has) a duty to protect life.

In allowing free entry of the SARS-CoV-2 virus into, respectively, the United Kingdom and Scotland there were grave, and I believe criminal, failures by Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon (among others).

Boris Johnson allowed the SARS-CoV-2 virus free entry into the UK throughout January and February 2020.

The consequence of that was that tens of thousands of people in the United Kingdom have died of Covid-19.

Similarly, Nicola Sturgeon allowed free entry of the SARS-CoV-2 virus into Scotland thoughout January and February 2020.

The consequence of that was that thousands of people in Scotland have died of Covid-19.

If entry of the SARS-CoV-2 virus into, respectively, the United Kingdom and Scotland had been prevented none of those many thousands of Covid-19 deaths would have occurred.

In my view Boris Johnson should be charged with tens of thousands of counts of gross negligence manslaughter with respect to Covid-19 deaths in England.

In addition, Boris Johnson should be charged with Breach of Duty and thousands of counts of Culpable Homicide with respect to Covid-19 deaths in Scotland.

In parallel, Nicola Sturgeon should be charged with Breach of Duty and thousands of counts of Culpable Homicide in Scotland.

It is for an English Court to decide on the facts whether Boris Johnson should be convicted of tens of thousands of counts of Gross Negligence Manslaughter.

It is for a Scottish Court to decide on the facts whether both Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon should be convicted of Breach of Duty and Culpable Homicide, only one of them should be convicted or neither.

Until the Metropolitan Police and Police Scotland carry out the necessary criminal investigations, both Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon, are getting away with ... well not quite murder ... Gross Negligence Manslaughter and Culpable Homicide.

Boris Johnson's failure to close the UK Border in January 2020 has wasted £200 BILLION (and counting)

Boris Johnson's failure to close the UK Border in January 2020 has cost the public purse in the United Kingdom some £200 BILLION (and counting).

If Boris Johnson had closed the UK Border on 7th January 2020 (the day that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was identified as a novel coronavirus), the SARS-CoV-2 virus would not have been allowed to enter the United Kingdom.

If the SARS-CoV-2 virus had been prevented from entering the United Kingdom some 100,000 deaths in the UK from Covid-19 would have been avoided.

If there were no cases of Covid-19 in the United Kingdom, life within the UK could have continued as normal ... at least for those of us not involved in the international travel industry.

There would have been no need for any "lockdown".

Schools could have remained open and there would be no "lost generation" whose education has been avoidably messed up.

Tourism in the UK would have flourished, in part because of people who might usually go abroad for their holidays being, in effect, forced to holiday in the UK.

Restaurants, pubs, sporting events etc could have continued as normal.

The huge loss in Gross Domestic Product caused by "lockdown"(s) would have been avoided.

"Furlough" or similar measures would have been targeted at the (much smaller) number of people directly involved with international travel.

 My estimate of the avoidable waste of public money is £200 BILLION. A proper calculation needs to be done by someone with more understanding of macroeconomics than I have.

That's £200 BILLION wasted ... "spaffed up a wall", if you have a taste for Boris Johnson's flamboyant use of language.

This is a matter that the Public Accounts Committee urgently needs to investigate.

When the next pandemic comes along the United Kingdom cannot afford to repeat Boris Johnson's disastrous mistakes.

The initial response of Nicola Sturgeon to Covid-19 was as abjectly bad as Boris Johnson's reponse

Readers of this blog will be aware that I view events in January 2020 as the key to properly understanding the Covid-19 pandemic and the Covid-19 epidemic in the United Kingdom.

The World Health Organisation's disastrous and predictably deadly approach to pandemics is the container for the United Kingdom's disastrous policy on Covid-19.

For detailed criticism of the World Health Organisation's approach to Covid-19 see my letter to Helen Clark and Ellen Sirleaf, co-chairs of the WHO's Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Responsed here:

Letter of 7th December 2020 to the International Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response

The correct approach of the United Kingdom Government to Covid-19 would have been to close the United Kingdom border in January 2020.

See, for example,

The United Kingdom's border should have been closed on 31st January 2020 

The failure to close the UK border in January 2020 was due to disastrously bad so-called "science" in January 2020 by the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) and by the Scientific (sic) Advisory Group on Emergencies (SAGE).

NERVTAG and SAGE also provided advice to the Scottish Government.

Nicola Sturgeon had legal powers in January 2020 to close the Scottish border to International Travel.

Those powers to close the Scottish border to International Travel were provided by section 94 of the Public Health etc (Scotland) Act 2008.

Closure of Scotland's border in January 2020, if properly coordinated, would have prevented entry of the SARS-CoV-2 virus into Scotland.

Nicola Sturgeon abjectly failed to use the legal powers available to her to protect the Public Health in Scotland.

As a result of Nicola Sturgeon's failure to act decisively in January 2020 over 3,000 residents of Scotland have avoidably died from Covid-19.

Those avoidable deaths are key to understanding why I view Nicola Sturgeon's initial response to Covid-19 as being as abjectly bad as Boris Johnson's initial response to Covid-19.

 

Did Chris Whitty's prejudice against border closures contribute to tens of thousands of avoidable Covid-19 deaths in the United Kingdom?

Insufficient attention has been paid in the mainstream media to the failures of the United Kingdom Government and its advisers in January 2020 which have been followed by tens of thousands of avoidable deaths from Covid-19.

As I have stated elsewhere, the United Kingdom should have closed its borders completely (with narrowly defined and strictly enforced exceptions for drivers of food lorries and similar individuals involved in genuinely essential tasks) on or around 31st January 2020.

See, for example,

The United Kingdom's border should have been closed on 31st January 2020

Such a border closure in January 2020 would have entirely (or almost entirely) prevented entry of the SARS-CoV-2 virus into the United Kingdom.

One of the questions which I believe a Public Inquiry (and perhaps a Police investigation) will require to explore is whether the prejudice of Chris Whitty against travel restrictions and border closures played a part in the chain of causation of the tens of thousands of avoidable deaths from Covid-19 in the United Kingdom.

Perhaps you were unaware of Professor Whitty's prejudices on this crucial matter.

I refer you to a video of a talk given by Professor Whitty on 10th October 2018 entitled,  Prof Chris Whitty: How to Control a Pandemic.

The relevant statements of Professor Whitty are to be found beginning at around 48:45 where he refers to "screening at airports and banning travel, which are utterly useless or as close to utterly useless as makes no difference".

In my view one of the questions that should be put to Professor Whitty by a Public Inquiry and by the Police is what evidence he had for his unqualified claim that "banning travel" was "utterly useless".

In addition, he should be asked what part his prejudice played in the failure of the United Kingdom to close its borders (with the narrowly defined exceptions referred to above) in January 2020.

Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance should resign or be sacked

Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer, and Patrick Vallance, Chief Scientific Adviser should resign or be sacked.

Each has played a significant part in the disastrously bad so-called "science" which has caused tens of thousands of avoidable deaths in the United Kingdom from Covid-19.

See, for example, my post of 24th November 2020:

Disastrously bad so-called "science" in the United Kingdom has caused tens of thousands of avoidable Covid-19 deaths in the UK

Disastrously bad so-called "science" in the United Kingdom has caused tens of thousands of avoidable Covid-19 deaths in the UK

The background to this post is contained in a post on my Corona Shock blog: Disastrously bad so-called "science" at the World Health Organisation has caused over 1,300,000 avoidable deaths.

Disastrously bad so-called "science" at the World Health Organisation expressed in the International Health Regulations (2005) allowed the SARS-CoV-2 virus to spread freely internationally.

Without that failure at the WHO the Covid-19 pandemic would not have become established.

Without that disastrous failure at the WHO more than a million deaths from Covid-19 could have been (and should have been) avoided.

Do the failures by the World Health Organisation absolve UK scientists and politicians from blame for the tens of thousands of deaths in the United Kingdom from Covid-19?

I don't believe so.

The WHO failures allowed the pandemic to become established.

The UK scientists and politicians had a Duty of Care to protect the Public Health in the United Kingdom despite the existence of a pandemic.

To understand the criticism of UK scientific advisers that I seek to make in this post you need carefully to distinguish the Covid-19 pandemic from the Covid-19 epidemic in the United Kingdom. 

UK scientific advisers had no direct responsibility or ability to stop the Covid-19 pandemic.

UK scientific advisers, in my view, did have a direct responsibility, a Duty of Care, to protect the Public Health in the United Kingdom.

One part of that Duty of Care, in my view, was carefully to consider whether an epidemic of Covid-19 in the United Kingdom could be prevented.

My view is that the Covid-19 epidemic in the United Kingdom could have been prevented.

If the United Kingdom border had been closed on or around 31st January 2020 (with limited exceptions for essential deliveries of food etc), as outlined in June in this post: The United Kingdom's border should have been closed on 31st January 2020 entry of the SARS-CoV-2 virus into the United Kingdom would have been stopped.

If the SARS-CoV-2 had been stopped from entering the United Kingdom, Covid-19 infection in the UK would have been stopped and deaths from Covid-19 would not have occurred.

In other words, all, or essentially all, of the tens of thousands of Covid-19 deaths in the United Kingdom were avoidable.

Those tens of thousands of Covid-19 deaths could have been avoided by closing the UK Border (with tightly limited exceptions for essential food deliveries etc) on or around 31st January 2020.

In future posts I will seek to set out the reasons I see for the disastrously bad so-called "science" that has caused tens of thousands of avoidable deaths from Covid-19 by failing to secure a closure of the UK border on or around 31st January 2020.

In my view serious criticism can fairly be directed at

• Boris Johnson
• Chris Whitty
• Patrick Vallance
• The New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG)
• The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE)
  

among others.

I expect it to take me multiple posts to set out all the disastrous mistakes which have led to so many thousands of avoidable deaths in the UK from Covid-19.