IT IS now crystal clear that since March 2020 the coronavirus pandemic has slowly but surely spiralled out of control in Britain. 

More virulent mutations of Covid-19 have developed due to a consistent and persistent lack of political will to implement effective lockdown strategies and to enable a workable and effective test and trace system. 

The priorities around safety and public health have been deliberately upended and we have seen the risk to mental health placed above the risk to life caused by Covid-19. 

Mental health has been opportunistically used by this government as an excuse to keep schools and workplaces open unnecessarily and it’s been used as a justification for people to behave as if there was no pandemic, which has been a key contributor in the spread and mutation of the virus.

People were given a green light by government to embrace a business-as-usual lifestyle on the spurious grounds of protecting their own individual mental health. 

Layers of these people are still travelling in and out of work, travelling up and down the country and even in and out of the country when they have the choice to stay at home and protect the lives of others. 

Christmas multihousehold mixing was sold on the grounds that the psychological need for families to be together at Christmas outweighed the risk to life from spreading the virus.

As deteriorating mental health has been moved into pole position as the key risk during the pandemic, there has been no consideration given to the mental health of key workers. 

These workers don’t get the free choice of whether or not to travel into work every day but they must cope with the increased fear and anxiety of working during a pandemic that is spiralling out of control again. 

Many of these key workers are GMB members struggling to keep the shops and hospitals running and our bins emptied — important tasks which sustain the lives of the rest of us.

Increasing numbers of key workers, hospital cleaners and others have long endured the type of workplace conditions that are crushing their mental health and wellbeing. 

Nothing has been done at any time to ensure their mental health is ever a priority.

The mental health and well-being of clinical NHS staff has been entirely forgotten as this government has consistently ignored the signs that the spread of the virus is growing. 

As more seriously unwell patients flood the hospitals, sanity-preserving annual leave is being cancelled to ensure the NHS can keep running. 

Broad-brush assumptions have been made about the experiences of children and young people during the course of the pandemic with the sole aim of piling on the pressure to keep schools open and ensure that parents get into work at any cost. 

If this government genuinely cared about the education, health and mental wellbeing of children and young adults they would urgently invest in ensuring that kids are safe, protected and educated even under full lockdown conditions.

As hysteria grows in the mass media about mental health problems rising during Covid-19, few are challenging the impact of years of cuts on mental health services which have placed them out of reach for many. 

And the mainstream press is not asking how it can be possible for people to enjoy good mental health when increasing numbers are struggling to get the material basics for survival like food and shelter. 

Whether there is a pandemic or not, priorities should always start with providing the resources, the services and a safe environment that sustains human life.

The rising mental health crisis started long before Covid-19 but it is constantly being used as a convenient excuse for this government to avoid the type of effective lockdowns that might have gone some way towards preserving human life. 

The government has presented a phoney choice that there is a trade-off between protecting mental health and preserving life which has allowed them to sidestep their duty and delay taking necessary measures to protect life. 

Mental health for some has been prioritised at the expense of ensuring maximum safety for all during this pandemic. 

The reality is that key workers and the poorest in society have borne the burden of this pandemic and neither their physical nor mental wellbeing are priorities for this government.  

At every point during the course of this pandemic this government has failed us. 

It has only delivered the bare minimum, too late and only when it has come under pressure from the social and trade union movements to do so. 

Across the labour and trade union movement we must be clear that if anyone in any part of our movement accepts a situation where respect for human life plummets no-one will ever enjoy good mental health.

Helen O’Connor is Southern Region organiser for GMB.