{"id":28117,"date":"2021-03-19T13:30:27","date_gmt":"2021-03-19T13:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=28117"},"modified":"2021-03-19T13:30:30","modified_gmt":"2021-03-19T13:30:30","slug":"damning-verdict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=28117","title":{"rendered":"\u00e2\u20ac\u0098Damning verdict\u00e2\u20ac\u2122"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Unite, which represents over 20,000 bus drivers in London, has described a\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ucl.ac.uk\/news\/2021\/mar\/earlier-lockdown-would-likely-have-saved-lives-london-bus-drivers-reports-independent\">new report from the University College of London<\/a>, which found that an earlier lockdown last year would have saved bus drivers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 lives, as a\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u015bdamning verdict on the failure to protect vulnerable key workers\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n<p>The key finding from the report,\u00c2\u00a0published today (Friday March 19), was that 80 per cent of the bus workers who died of Covid-19 in the first wave had ceased work by \u00c2\u00a0April 3, 2020.<\/p>\n<p>The report says, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bAn earlier lockdown would likely have saved lives, with many of the drivers who died having underlying health conditions, putting them at greater risk.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis is a damning verdict on the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s failure to introduce an earlier lockdown\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 commented Unite regional officer John Murphy.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe government had the information about the danger of Covid-19 and it failed to act, which\u00c2\u00a0dramatically and\u00c2\u00a0tragically\u00c2\u00a0increased bus driver deaths.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bLondon bus drivers were essential to keeping the capital\u00c2\u00a0moving during the lockdown but they were left needlessly exposed by government inaction.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhen the government should have been locking down and saving lives, it was still talking about herd immunity.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bFrom well before the lockdown was announced, Unite was forcing bus operators and TfL to stricter safety measures to protect drivers. This culminated in the closing of front doors and the full sealing of the cabs to protect drivers, alongside a host of other measures.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe government has a moral duty to end the delay in launching a full public inquiry into the pandemic. The reasons for its failure to act and introduce a lockdown earlier must be fully understood and explained,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Murphy concluded.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>By Barkley Sumner\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unite, which represents over 20,000 bus drivers in London, has described a\u00c2\u00a0new report from the University College of London, which found that an earlier lockdown last year would have saved bus drivers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 lives, as a\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u015bdamning verdict on the failure to protect vulnerable key workers\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1308,1],"tags":[176,1295,290],"wps_subtitle":"Unite slams govt failure to prevent bus driver deaths","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28117"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28117"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28119,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28117\/revisions\/28119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}