As a councillor, parent and key healthcare worker, I call on the government to take responsibility for the failure of their response to the Covid-19 pandemic. “People with symptoms who can’t get a test can’t go to work, their children can’t go to school and whole year groups are being sent home across the country only a week after schools reopening. “They’ve had six months to create a robust, publicly run, test, track and trace system before lifting lockdown and reopening schools. The failure is wholly theirs. “The Prime Minster blamed the problems with the privately run track and trace system on a huge surge in demand, ‘particularly from people who don’t have symptoms’. “However people who do have symptoms still can’t get a test for themselves or their children without travelling way further than what the Prime Minster says is the ‘median journey of 10 miles’. It’s not so long ago that the government promised 100 per cent testing.” - Samantha Charles

(Source: Malven Gazette, Accessed 2020)