More Tory cowardice as Public Health England say report should be released, but government continues to withhold it
For a second time, the Tories have delayed the release of a report into the reasons that COVID-19 kills a far higher proportion of people of colour – and they have admitted that a desire to avoid public anger is the reason.
A Number 10 source confessed that the government is:
incredibly worried that this could be in too close proximity to the #BlackLivesMatter protests.
The Tories’ failure to provide adequate PPE – vital personal protective equipment – to front-line workers, mostly low-paid and including a high proportion of BAME people, has been intrinsically racist, even more so as it became clearer that the risk to black and Asian people of being killed by the coronavirus is much greater.
That racism would be clearly perceived against a background of international anger at the murder of George Floyd by police officers in the US. So the Tories are simply refusing – again – to release it:
Earlier on Monday, the Tories also hid the deaths of 445 mostly elderly people killed by the virus in residential care – deaths for which the government’s deliberate policy, of sending infected people back to homes not equipped to treat or isolate them, is responsible – so Matt Hancock could boast of falling death rates.
Such evasion of accountability and arrogant disregard for the consequences of their actions are unforgivable.
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