Ending Covid-19 health protections in England has turned out to be another great Boris Johnson decision, then.
According to The Mail (but I think we can trust it on this), 91,345 new cases were diagnosed between March 15 and 16 – up by one-third in a week.
Hospital admissions were up by 29 per cent on the previous week, to 1,541.
And 153 people died – a rise of a quarter on the week before.
A new sub-variant of Omicron – BA.2 – is thought to be the main factor behind the increases, in tandem with the easing of restrictions in England on February 24 and waning immunity from the vaccines – although the Office of National Statistics says it is too early to say for sure.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid reckons increases were to be “expected” and there is ‘nothing in the data at this point in time that gives us any cause for concern’.
But take a look at the trend in deaths…
… and in infections…
… and then try convincing yourself, let alone anyone else, that there’s no reason to be alarmed.
Two and a half million people infected and they think it’s a good idea to lift the restrictions that keep us all protected? It seems they really are genocidal.
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Jabber Johnson: he says people still need to be vaccinated as the Omicron variant is “not a mild disease for everyone”.
Boris Johnson has announced that health protection regulations that he brought in to minimise the effect of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 will be ended on Thursday, January 27.
For clarity, this means:
The end of mandatory Covid passes in England, with businesses allowed to use them if they choose
Mandatory face masks will end, including in classrooms for secondary students and on public transport – meaning people will not be criminalised for choosing not to wear them
The end to work from home guidance
Restrictions on care homes will be eased, with detail to be released
However, there will still be a legal requirement to self-isolate if you test positive for Covid
As Johnson made his announcement, a Scottish MP asked: “Is the PM scrapping the rules because he doesn’t understand them?” in a harsh – but fair – comment on the prime minister’s latest “Partygate” excuse.
Johnson said his government got the tough decisions right – but did he?
He failed to identify the seriousness of Omicron when it was first reported. He didn’t close the UK’s borders; he practically invited Omicron into the country.
He failed to impose new health protection measures in time to prevent more than a million people from catching the new strain of Covid-19.
He failed to equip the NHS to take the added strain created by the two failures listed above, meaning doctors and nurses were pushed to their limit and beyond. The future of healthcare in the UK is looking bleak because these professionals will be reassessing their decision to work here.
And there is no guarantee that a Johnson government will not make the same mistakes again, if another variant of Covid-19 washes up on the UK’s shores.
Every decision Johnson has made about Covid-19 has been determined by whether a Tory, or a Tory donor, can make money from it.
This announcement merely highlights more reasons Johnson must be removed from office.
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Backhander: private health companies are being given a fortune in public money by the Tory government – and the cash will go to firms that are part-owned by Tories and Tory donors.
Can anybody make sense of this?
Sajid Javid has ordered NHS England to give up to £270m to private hospitals in case of an omicron surge, all of which they will keep even if they treat no patients & despite a lack of staff. Beneficiaries include Spire Health, Ramsay & Circle which is part owned by a tory donor
The only reason This Writer can find for such funding is the one that has been causing the Tories all their problems at the moment: deception.
Only recently, we were told NHS England did not have enough Covid-19 tests – LFT or PCR – to cover demand; indeed, it had to take four million kits from NHS Wales in an effort to cover the shortfall.
So when we see that the number of infections is down to around 70,000, can we really believe it? Or is the investment in private healthcare justified?
It doesn’t matter – because the Tory government is deceiving us in any event.
If the number of infections isn’t really down, then the government is lying about that; if it is, then the government is lying about the need to pay private health.
My personal opinion? The number of deaths appears to have reduced as well as infections (although we’ll have to see what Monday’s data brings), so I’m willing to hazard a guess that the Omicron wave has broken.
That means there’s absolutely no reason to give any money to the profit-grubbers and Sajid Javid is simply lining shareholders’ pockets for no reason other than squandering your cash.
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Boris Johnson says the UK’s position with regard to Covid-19 is “incomparably better” than it was this time last year.
I don’t get it, so I’m willing to bet that you don’t either.
Covid-19 infections in the UK have skyrocketed over the Christmas period – and that’s just those we know about!
At the time of writing, the number of new cases in England and Scotland stood at 157, 758 on January 3. Those for Wales and Northern Ireland were not included in the figures from Public Health England.
And there is a shortage of test kits, meaning the figures available to us are likely to represent only a fraction of the real total.
Only 42 deaths have been recorded. Again, these are likely to be a fraction of the real total, but the figure is one of the best This Writer has seen in months.
The number of hospitalisations is not listed on any of the press releases I’ve seen, but it likely to be around 9-10,000. That’s about 50 per cent more than the previous week, indicating that while the Omicron variant may not kill people, it will certainly put them in hospital, tying up NHS resources.
The government’s response? Revive Nightingale hospitals.
That’s right. Apparently eight new Nightingales are being set up in car parks across the UK, aiming to provide 4,000 extra beds for Covid-19 patients.
Sadly, there are no extra NHS staff available to run these so-called hospitals. The NHS is overstretched, just staffing the genuine hospitals it has. Boris Johnson’s claim to be recruiting 50,000 new nurses had the same validity as most of his pronouncements (in other words, none at all) and Sajid Javid’s appeal for former healthcare professionals to help out has fallen on deaf ears.
It seems both men are hoping that nobody will realise that a tent in a car park without hospital staff isn’t a hospital; it’s just a tent – in a car park.
Heaven help you if you end up being sent there.
While all this was going on, the government assured everybody in England that it was perfectly safe to enjoy New Year parties – without any health protection measures at all. This was probably motivated by fear of being shamed again if evidence comes to light of more Downing Street parties at a time when people were not allowed to enjoy themselves, and hope that the inevitable increase in Covid cases comes as those with other causes start to tail off.
Oh, and the shortage of NHS staff is not being addressed at all. In fact, the Tories have refused to provide the FFP2 or FFP3 face masks that will protect them from being infected by their patients, meaning he is deliberately directing the NHS towards what could be its worst ever winter crisis.
Then there’s the question of schools.
The new term begins on January 4 (which could be today, depending on when you’re reading this), with only one health protection measure in place: secondary pupils must wear masks.
There is no plan to address the acute shortage of teachers caused by the government’s refusal to impose protections on their health after the Omicron variant arrived in the UK.
This means classes – and indeed entire schools – are likely to close this month.
Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi has told head teachers to consider merging classes (to ensure that pupils who may not be infected have a chance to catch Covid from those who are?) or sending groups of pupils home if staff absences reach critical levels.
This suggests that his own appeal for former teachers to volunteer to help has fallen on the same stony ground as his colleague Javid’s did within the NHS. And quite right, too – retired staff are in the Covid-19 danger zone and must consider their own safety first.
So government policy is another massive contradiction. Health protection measures are minimal and the assumption is that schools will stay open until closure is the only choice remaining to them – meaning they must become breeding grounds for the virus, once again.
Calls for better ventilation, filtration, and social distancing have been rejected by the government – possibly because acting on them would involve spending money, and the only spending the Tories plan to do on Covid-19 is wasting cash by handing it to their friends (no matter how amateur they may be).
Sadly we cannot expect opposition to any of these hare-brained policies from Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.
Starmer supported, to the hilt, everything Johnson has done – and failed to do – about Covid-19. That includes demanding that schools should stay open.
A U-turn now would leave him and his Tepid Tory party wide open to criticism from the real Tories.
Labour had the chance to demand school safety, support for the vulnerable, and help for businesses but squandered it. Now it is too late for Starmer to change.
Add it all up and it makes nonsense of Boris Johnson’s claim that the UK is in an “incomparably better” position than this time last year.
We are on the edge of a cliff and he is trying to push us over.
That’s unless you can make it make sense for the rest of us.
Social media comments on the information supporting this article – and more – are below:
BREAKING: If you're concerned about going into a crowded hospital this winter, you can rest assured that if the NHS collapses, the prime minister has a brilliant plan to put you in a tent in a car park and no, I am not joking this time x
Pubs are open but supposed wards are being built in car parks when the real crisis is with NHS staff shortages due to Covid. Literally none of this makes sense. https://t.co/Wq9KgG2QZy
It’s safe for us to party without restrictions, says Johnson, yet the government is building emergency wards in hospital car parks (don’t ask how they will be staffed, Johnson hasn’t thought about that).
In what parallel universe does such a contradictory policy make any sense?
On the 4th January millions of teachers and students return to the classroom amidst a surging omicron pandemic. Currently a national shortage of PCR and LFTs. Still no changes to school safety – no masks, no ventilation, no filtration, no social distancing.
I want HEPA filtration for 2022 https://t.co/CYDsOqYScT Clean water made city living possible in the nineteenth century. Engineers delivered it. Clean air is what we now need in the 21st century. And it would be easy to deliver. So why isn't it happening?
If you're planning erecting tent hospitals in car parks while not doing anything to limit social interaction at New Year, you are culpable for any deaths that occur.
The Covid catastrophe, which is coming at us like a freight train in the night, was avoidable. It will lag the mixing of Christmas & New Year by 2-4 weeks. Already, huge NHS staff shortages because of Covid. More than 40+ off at hospice where my wife works.
No matter what your political persuasion it is truly remarkable that there’s absolutely no direction coming from @BorisJohnson whatsoever: no conciliatory or comforting message, no comment on the extraordinary COVID figures released today, nothing! An abject failure of leadership
For those arguing that the huge increases in hospital patients with Covid "don't matter" because they're really there for another reason:
The latest data (for 21 Dec) show, in fact, that 70% of the 6,245 Covid inpatients in England were being treated *primarily* for Covid. pic.twitter.com/z5RkKBj6Vb
A good reminder of just how bad Sir Keir Starmer was on nurses’ pay. He wanted a 2.5% increase. The Tories gave a 3.0% increase. Inflation is 5.2% so both figures are real terms cuts. Only +15% for all NHS staff will suffice. pic.twitter.com/x1f0XKF59N
Very good news that the Welsh government is loaning the UK government 4 million tests. A big thank you to Mark Drakeford. But why on earth has the Welsh Labour government managed to plan for the increased demand for tests but the Conservative UK government has not?
How can Labour front bench criticise the Govt covid strategy now when they voted with them on the Covid emergency measures and didn’t make demands re school safety , the most vulnerable, or support for businesses when they had the chance?
Reasons to be pessimistic https://t.co/P7Xaqq5f7e With a government as reckless or incompetent as the one we have now there are few reasons to be optimistic about 2022. After all, they don't care if we die or not, so what else don't they bother about?
Yesterday a group of Covid deniers stormed a Liverpool hospital, threatened staff, accused them of “aiding and abetting genocide” & tried to remove an elderly patient from a Covid ward.
Do it online if you can: but will employees really be penalised by the new Welsh Government rule?
I can think of at least one employer of people in Wales that will hate this:
From Monday (December 27), workers will receive a £60 fixed penalty notice and companies will be fined £1,000 every time they are found not to be working from home, with no good reason for being at their normal place of work.
For employers, this could rise to a maximum fine of £10,000.
The new measure to limit the spread of Covid-19 (in the light of the rise of the Omicron variant) is being imposed by the Welsh government.
Employers will be expected to take all reasonable steps to facilitate home working and provide employees with the support they need.
Unions have raised concerns that employers will be able to protect themselves from fines by placing liability on workers, but I don’t see how this can work.
It should be fairly obvious if an employee is able to work from home, and if an employer if restricting them from doing so.
For example, as a journalist, I’m entirely capable of working from home. I’ve been doing it successfully for 10 days short of 10 years, at the time of writing.
But a previous employer, that wanted to move its branch office to 41 miles away from my home for no very good reason, demanded that I travel that distance every day, even though it was possible that I would have to travel back again (to my patch) during the day, and then return to the office to write up my stories.
I was capable of working from home. My employer was restricting me from doing so.
I honestly think my then-bosses were mystified when I resigned. I went on to better things and the local edition of the newspaper folded. I think other changes had to be made in the firm to cover its losses, although that may just be gossip.
All because an employer refused to allow an employee to work from home.
I’m not suggesting that anyone should quit their job if their employer orders them to attend a workplace that may infect them with Covid-19.
Obviously, being compelled by their boss should be a good enough reason for them to do so. Then the burden of responsibility would fall onto the employer.
If the Welsh Government was really serious about this, though, there’s an obvious answer:
A contact system for whistleblowers.
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Standoff: the Tory government is at war with its own backbenchers over new measures to minimise the effect of Covid-19, that have been in place and working in Wales for many months.
This Writer has received notification of a Covid-19 booster injection appointment.
It’s on December 29. I had expected December 20, six months after my second vaccination, and then when Boris Johnson announced that seven weeks of injections were going to be crammed into three, I joked that I should have mine on Thursday (December 16).
But it seems I should be grateful to be having one at all – the only reason for it being that I live in Wales.
The NHS protocol for walk in booster jabs is not yet in place… This shouldn't have been announced by Johnson yesterday…
No lateral flows, nobody knows who will be administering 1 million jabs a day, assuming the website doesn’t keep crashing and you can actually book an appointment.
If only the government put as much effort into fighting Covid as they did into having Christmas gatherings.
This is the mess that Keir Starmer told the nation was his “patriotic duty” to support.
You have a serious think about that.
Johnson only managed to get his back-of-a-fag-packet ideas for dealing with Omicron passed in Parliament because Starmer helped him unreservedly.
He could have demanded important guarantees and life-saving additions – like the increase in Statutory Sick Pay that would have made it possible for working people to take time off if struck down by the new variant, but he didn’t.
And he could have demanded proper measures for schools, including ventilation, but he didn’t.
The new measures are pretty much what we in Wales have already.
But here there are administered properly. I’m looking forward with trepidation to the chaos and anger when people realise they’ll be forced to show Covid passes for events at large venues. If they’re upset at putting a piece of cloth over their faces in most indoor public places, then they’re just selfish (face masks primarily protect other people, remember).
I disagree with mandatory vaccination for all NHS frontline staff. What people put into their bodies must be a matter of personal choice and it is unforgivable that politicians are forcing people to choose between what they think is right for themselves and their job helping others.
Significant numbers of Conservative MPs rebelled against all of the new measures – 98 against Covid passes, 63 against mandatory vaccination of NHS staff and 38 against face masks in public places.
If they thought these things were bad ideas on Tuesday, wait until they see how poorly Johnson enforces them!
And, of course, anybody deliberately refusing to follow the new rules has a mandate from the prime minister himself – who flouts Covid regulations whenever he feels like it. I understand he addressed a packed meeting of Tory backbenchers – sans face mask – before yesterday’s votes.
And Covid-19 cases are skyrocketing again with nearly 60,000 new cases discovered on the day Parliament held its debate.
Ultimately, it seems likely that these measures – which are only being imposed now to distract us from the Tory government’s flagrant breaches of its own rules with huge parties last Christmas while people were dying in their hundreds every day – will only increase calls for Johnson to quit politics, never to return.
That day can’t come soon enough.
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Mistaken identity: Boris Johnson took to our TV screens to announce new government measures to tackle the Omicron variant of Covid-19. But we thought it was another Christmas quiz. What was the first question again?
This Writer’s booster injection, if all went as planned, was due on December 20. Am I now to expect it on Thursday, after Boris Johnson’s announcement on Sunday evening?
Johnson intruded on our Sunday viewing to announce that the UK’s Covid alert level was being raised to 4 – the second-highest – indicating a high or rising level of transmission.
And he said the government was accelerating vaccinations and booster jabs, intending to fit seven weeks’ worth of injections into three. That’s how I calculated the schedule for my own booster.
No further social distancing restrictions were announced.
To be honest, the government could have made this announcement without putting Johnson out to broadcast it in a pre-recorded statement (that he still stumbled through like a drunkard who’s lost his reading glasses).
This Writer was most struck by what wasn’t said.
This could have been a press conference, with media reporters (and, preferably, members of the public) lined up to ask questions.
But it seems Johnson wasn’t having any of that. Was he afraid we would all go off-script and start demanding answers about his own failures to follow the Covid-19 rules last Christmas?
I think he was. I think he dreaded being asked why he told us all the regulations were followed in Downing Street last December when we now have photographic evidence that he, personally, did not.
Also – and I got this from Alastair Campbell who, whatever you may think of him, should know – it seems that, having allowed the Conservative government air time to make the announcement, broadcasters like the BBC are now obliged to provide the equivalent air time to the opposition political parties. When’s that going to happen, BBC?
Finally, it occurs to me that this announcement is only necessary because of Johnson’s laissez-faire attitude to Covid-19. He should have admitted that his government had made mistakes – in timing the vaccine rollout at the very least – but he couldn’t even get that right.
Given the nature of the announcement, which was that the government and NHS are going to do more, but we don’t have to do anything we wouldn’t have done anyway, I’m drawn to only one conclusion: that Johnson had used this as an opportunity to present himself in a good light.
To that, I can only say:
Tough luck, corrupt liar! You shouldn’t have come out of hiding for any reason other than to explain yourself, or simply to resign, and you bottled it! Don’t come back until you’re ready to face the consequences of your actions.
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Covid-19: some readers have complained about This Site’s use of a graphic. It’s the one I used at the start and I’m going to carry on using it!
Isn’t it handy that the Tories can distract us all with fears about a new variant of Covid-19?
Isn’t it weird that reporting of Covid-19 generally seems to have fallen off?
But isn’t it also handy that we have people who can provide us with the juice that they’re trying to hide?
Having ditched nearly all Covid protections, We have been running with high levels of disease for months. We have had over 5 million infections since July 1st. No other W. European country has had 2. We have had some 16,000 deaths. No other W.European country is approaching 10. pic.twitter.com/K7ZKafOYDG
So come on, Boris Johnson! On your feet, Sajid Javid!
We want to know why the UK has had two and a half times as many Covid-19 infections as the most heavily-infected European country since your “Freedom Day” farce.
And we’re particularly keen to hear your explanation of why we have had to suffer around double the number of deaths seen in our most terminal neighbours.
(That’s according to Tory government figures which are wrong, mind. The Tories want you to think 145,140 people have died. More accurate ONS data suggests nearly 170,000 people have died. This Writer tends to think even this is a conservative estimate.)
Scientific information suggests the symptoms of Omicron are mild – headaches and tiredness. If that’s true, then I’m not fantastically worried!
Like most of the population, I don’t really want to know about a disease that will make me feel a bit drowsy and headachey. I want to know about the disease that’s likely to kill me.
What really gets my goat is having the facts withheld from me.
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Risk: this is a German advert showing how masks reduce the risk of catching Covid-19 and its variants. People in the UK should take heed because the advice from our own government isn’t worth the time taken to listen to it.
There comes a time when even the most tolerant observer must give in and admit that the government is deliberately sabotaging its own fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. Doesn’t there?
Surely, if you didn’t reach it in July when Boris Johnson condemned millions more people to catch the virus and at least 16,000 to die of it with his misnamed “Freedom Day”…
“Freedom Day” – what a bloody stupid and irresponsible slogan that turned out to be…
… you must have reached it now, with Sajid Javid’s contradictory and nonsensical plan to battle the so-called Omicron Variant that has apparently arrived here from South Africa.
We know from experience that certain steps need to be taken to stop the spread of a new variant – especially one that is considered highly-infectious:
Travel from its countries of origin must be stopped (or at least severely restricted), and all visitors from those countries tested – before they have contact with anybody other than those who were on the plane (or whatever transport) with them. There’s none of that in Javid’s plan.
Covid news South Africa passengers not tested, Javid admits. As always this Government is handling this pandemic dreadfully and putting everyone at risk. Please wear a mask. Nobody wants to lose their loved ones!!
Could @sajidjavid explain how you trace all the contacts of an infected person who’s queued at the baggage carousel, been on a bus & 3 different tube trains please.
Working people should be told to work from home, rather than being forced to come to offices where the disease could be spread. Javid absolutely will not permit this, for reasons unknown. It won’t even harm the economy so what is his argument against it?
#marr – Should people work from home where possible?
Sajid Javid – No#Marr – SAGE say the reintroduction of working from home is likely to have the greatest individual impact on transmission.. but you've ruled it out
We have an Ayn Rand worshipping banker in charge of health. Of course he would say that. Science be damned, the economy needs you at your desk and we'll make the same mistakes over and over again to make sure you stay there. https://t.co/PKCVvImWbL
If Boris Johnson really wanted to reduce transmission of the virus, he would stop forcing workers to choose between isolating & putting food on the table.
Raising statutory sick pay to the real living wage is a basic public health measure which must be taken immediately.
Everybody should go back to wearing masks in public places immediately. Javid said mask-wearing should resume on buses and in shops, but not elsewhere – and from Tuesday (November 30).
Nice of Omicron to give us til Tuesday before it decides to become transmissible.
And of course schools should be masked up and ventilated, and all efforts made to ensure that children don’t catch and spread the virus in any form. We’re seeing no changes in schools at all.
Back to the magic variants … the ones that are transmitted in buses and shops, but not in #schools. #Variant#Omicron
I think it’s deliberate lying; Govt know covid affects children, they see figures for deaths, hospitalisations& long covid but don’t see need to act, so they lie to the public & DFE have an attendance crackdown on those who won’t comply bec don’t want to spend our £ on Education
Possibly the worst act of sabotage is the one the Tories pull all the time – creating a false division between “us” and “them”.
In this case, it seems our capitalist vaccine manufacturers decided that, having provided protection to the UK (and others, I’m sure), Johnny Foreigner could pay double and more.
In January 2021, South Africa was charged more than double for doses of the vaccine.
Not only did they not waive the patent, not only did they not share the vaccine, they exploited the very poorest countries.
Vaccine capitalism is the ugliest type of capitalism.
This doesn’t mean they have been more successful at stopping the spread of the virus – as some have insisted.
According to the BBC, high numbers of cases increase the risk of mutations, thereby increasing the risk of a mutation that leads to a new variant – because it has changed in a way that helps it survive.
So while the Omicron variant is likely to have come from a single “Patient Zero” who was unable to defeat the virus, it is likely to have been made possible by the virus infecting a large number of people; this particular person was just the one whose illness created a new threat.
So it is also important to take action now that will ensure that everybody is vaccinated against the virus and able to fight it. Sajid Javid has said and done nothing about this.
It’s not too late to waive the vaccine patents & end vaccine apartheid.
Pressure must be applied to G7 leaders to do the right thing.
Meanwhile, the parade of Covid-19 nonsense continues to march across our TV and computer screens.
Andrew Marr, who should have known better, actually asked Health Secretary Sajid Javid whether Omicron was more transmissible than the others because “it transmits through the air” – just like every single form of Covid-19. But most of the public will have heard this without engaging their brain to spot the error.
I can’t believe Andrew Marr asked Sajid Javid whether omicron was more transmissible than other variants because “it transmits through the air”. He’s been interviewing the world’s top scientists every Sunday morning for almost two years now 😬
Of course the NHS is being ramped up with 50,000 new nurses – right? Wrong. Instead, Javid has announced “NHS Reserves” – a scheme to drag retired NHS staff back out to cover the gaps in care created by 11 years of Tory resource starvation and nearly two years of a deadly pandemic.
What happened to the thousands of 'new' nurses you were bragging about last week? https://t.co/aCffLcPilb
— Jen Wood – est optimum simpliciter (@unojen_wood) November 28, 2021
I think this plan is known as “Everybody get out and push”.
The NHS is, in fact, less well-equipped to fight Covid-19 than it was in March last year because Javid and his forerunner Matt Hancock have quietly closed 5,000 NHS beds in that time, with no explanation given.
Why have the Government been allowed to get away with getting rid of 5000 beds in the NHS since March 2020?
Oh, and if you thought the Covid-19 gravy train had stopped rolling…
Randox dramatically increased the cost of a PCR test yesterday. Wonder did they get the heads up from the tories. #RandoxProfiteeringScum
— Matt Dunne ☘🌹3.5% #FBPE #GTTO #FreeNazanin (@Mattladd1) November 28, 2021
Put it all together and it seems unreasonable to ascribe this level of wrong-headedness to simple incompetence.
It’s a deliberate attempt to sabotage the fight against Covid-19, isn’t it? And just in time for Christmas.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
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