What do you think?
Rate this book
Lockdown Wales: How Covid-19 Tested Wales
Like the rest of the UK, lockdown in Wales meant human tragedies and unforeseen pressures on our lives. How did we manage? What was the cost to people and to the country? What did it say about the place we live in? Will Hayward has the insider account of personal loss and government strategizing, key worker heroics and political fall-out.
272 pages, Paperback
First published March 25, 2021
7 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 7, 2021
An excellent re-telling of the pandemic in Wales from its beginnings in March through to the summer by an author who has reported first-hand on the crisis since the start.
There is some important background information for context, such as the Exercise Cygnus report in 2016 which found the UK was unprepared to cope with a global pandemic, and the virus' beginnings in China.
Through rigorous reporting over the course of the pandemic, the author lays out a number of worrying key points in the Welsh Government's handling of the crisis. There is evidence showing that PPE rationing may have at times been based on supply rather than safety, and a disastrous lack of available testing leaving care homes having to take matters into their own hands.
However, Wales also suffered from a number of deep-rooted issues which impacted on its ability to tackle the pandemic. These included its convoluted health and care systems, years of an underfunded health service, persistent inequality which put the BAME community at much more severe risk, and a devolution system which though well-functioning initially, eventually became an unnecessary cause of conflict, confusion and distraction between Wales and the rest of the UK.
The author's overall belief is that Covid-19 has simply brought many long-standing, deep-rooted issues into sharp focus, exposing fissures within government and society that have long been left unaddressed, ripe for a deadly pandemic to have its way with when the time came.
Ultimately, the reforms required for an adequate response to a pandemic, the ones which would have genuinely saved a great number of the almost 5,000 people who have already died in Wales, are those which have been long-standing - corruption, cronyism and a complete lack of incentive to tackle issues which are complex, expensive to fix and are unlikely to be remedied within a single election cycle. What is more, they are the very issues which those with the power to change have the least interest in changing, making you wonder where exactly we are headed in an age where issues like climate change are becoming a very real concern.
As well as its overarching concerns about the state of the UK, the author presents a simple and clearly-written account of a virus which continues to test Wales and the world as a whole, and it's a book which will be an important reference point for how a devolved nation copes with a defining event of our time in years to come.
There is some important background information for context, such as the Exercise Cygnus report in 2016 which found the UK was unprepared to cope with a global pandemic, and the virus' beginnings in China.
Through rigorous reporting over the course of the pandemic, the author lays out a number of worrying key points in the Welsh Government's handling of the crisis. There is evidence showing that PPE rationing may have at times been based on supply rather than safety, and a disastrous lack of available testing leaving care homes having to take matters into their own hands.
However, Wales also suffered from a number of deep-rooted issues which impacted on its ability to tackle the pandemic. These included its convoluted health and care systems, years of an underfunded health service, persistent inequality which put the BAME community at much more severe risk, and a devolution system which though well-functioning initially, eventually became an unnecessary cause of conflict, confusion and distraction between Wales and the rest of the UK.
The author's overall belief is that Covid-19 has simply brought many long-standing, deep-rooted issues into sharp focus, exposing fissures within government and society that have long been left unaddressed, ripe for a deadly pandemic to have its way with when the time came.
Ultimately, the reforms required for an adequate response to a pandemic, the ones which would have genuinely saved a great number of the almost 5,000 people who have already died in Wales, are those which have been long-standing - corruption, cronyism and a complete lack of incentive to tackle issues which are complex, expensive to fix and are unlikely to be remedied within a single election cycle. What is more, they are the very issues which those with the power to change have the least interest in changing, making you wonder where exactly we are headed in an age where issues like climate change are becoming a very real concern.
As well as its overarching concerns about the state of the UK, the author presents a simple and clearly-written account of a virus which continues to test Wales and the world as a whole, and it's a book which will be an important reference point for how a devolved nation copes with a defining event of our time in years to come.
Displaying 1 of 1 review