UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson held a COVID-19 press conference yesterday, at which he warned that “storm clouds that are gathering over the continent. A new wave of Covid has steadily swept through central Europe and is now affecting our nearest neighbours in Western Europe.”

He added, “We don’t yet know the extent to which this new wave will wash up on our shores, but history shows we cannot afford to be complacent. Indeed, in recent days cases there have been rising here in the UK, so we must remain vigilant.”

Johnson is of course lying. The pandemic continues to rage in the UK, fuelled by the elimination of virtually all measures of mitigation and the reopening of the economy, including schools. But Johnson, along with Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty and Chief Scientific Officer Sir Patrick Vallance made these “warnings” while proposing no measures to protect the population, beyond calling for the over 40s to get a booster vaccine and announcing that 16-17 years olds will now be offered a second dose.

Johnson’s pose of concern was sickening. His government has already decided that nothing will be done ever again to stop the spread of a deadly disease. He spoke after documents were leaked revealing that the government’s overarching goal is for the disease to become endemic in the population for years to come.

The Mail on Sunday revealed details of “Operation Rampdown” in a two page spread, consisting of four articles. The Mail, which has long opposed lockdowns and any mitigation measures impeding the profit interests of the capitalist class, featured a picture of a face mask being burnt, alongside the words, “It will appal some but be music to the ears of others.” Making clear what was meant, its main article states baldly, “The leaked Rampdown plans will be hailed by business owners…”

The Mail reports, “The Rampdown strategy is being hammered out as part of a six-week review of the Government's ‘test, trace and isolate regime’ by officials at the UK Health Security Agency, a new body headed by former Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Jenny Harries.”

The “strategy” is effectively already policy, with the newspaper reporting, “Their [UK Health Security Agency] conclusions are due to be finalised by Dr Harries and other key officials this weekend before being submitted to Health Secretary Sajid Javid.” [emphasis added]

The opening paragraph of the first article by Isabel Oakeshott and Mark Hookham reads, “Britain's response to Covid is set to be dramatically scaled back early next year as part of a pandemic ‘exit strategy’ codenamed Rampdown.” It notes, “The secret Whitehall plan” is detailed in a “extraordinary 160-page dossier” that “includes a string of documents marked ‘official sensitive’ drawn up by the senior Government officials tasked with winding down Britain's battle against the pandemic.”

The titles of the Mail’s other articles confirm the homicidal basis of Operation Rampdown: “We’ll have to live with the virus for years say the experts”; “It’s the end of free tests for everyone”; “No more self-isolation from March”.

The government plans to have no measures in place by March/April of next year to stem the spread of the pandemic, and, in all essentials, no measures to prevent its resurgence.

The Mail reports, “The file reveals how the Government is set to:

• Axe the legal requirement for those who catch the virus to self-isolate for ten days;
• End free Covid tests and instead allow private companies to charge for lateral flow and PCR tests;
• Shut down the national ‘Test and Trace’ system, which identifies those who may have been exposed to the virus;
• Focus the fight against Covid on tackling local outbreaks and protecting ‘highest risk settings’, such as care homes;
• Scrap £500 payments for those on low incomes who must quarantine.”

Officials “are examining ‘what activities can we start ramping down before April?’ and what the ‘end state’ of Britain's response to Covid should be after April.”

The direction of travel is so rapid that the newspaper reveals “one Whitehall source has told The Mail on Sunday that some systems for monitoring the spread of the disease have already been shut down sparking alarm among top Government scientists.”

“Crucially, the documents reveal that Ministers are set to abandon attempts to stop Covid-19 spreading ‘at all costs’”.

At all costs? Such language could not be more chilling, given it is policy of a government headed by a maniac, Johnson, who said at the end of last October, only weeks before the peak of the pandemic in January/February this year, “No more fucking lockdowns. Let the bodies pile high in their thousands.”

At that point, Johnson’s herd immunity policy had officially taken 46,807 lives. In allowing the virus to rip throughout 2021, Johnson prepared the way for nearly 100,000 more lives lost in Britain.

These figures do not depict the true scale of carnage. Separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics last week showed there have been 167,000 deaths registered in the UK where COVID-19 is mentioned on the death certificate.

At every stage of the pandemic, the Johnson government has led the world in rolling out policies that have led to mass murder. At the beginning of the pandemic, before the intervention of the working class and concerned scientists prevented it, the government’s plan was to let rip COVID tear through the population, with up to 800,000 deaths being contemplated.

Ruling out preventing the spread of COVID takes place with the advantage gained by vaccinating much of the adult population undermined by waning immunity, and with children either partially vaccinated or unvaccinated.

The ruling elite’s aim is to end all spending aimed at containing in any way the spread of COVID and to explicitly implement a cost-benefit criteria to determine who lives and dies from COVID infection.

The Mail notes that “health officials will judge future policies against the same kind of cost-benefit analysis used to decide whether the NHS [National Health Service] can afford expensive new drugs.”

It reports the chilling words of another of the documents, “We will no longer be prioritising the previous objectives of breaking chains of transmission at all costs.”

The Mail adds, “Insiders say the Rampdown strategy was partly being driven by the need to rein in the vast sums being spent on the pandemic.

One cost cutting exercise is scrapping “hugely costly free tests… Essentially they have to run everything down by the end of March because then the funding has gone,' a source said”.

COVID will be taking life for the foreseeable future, with one document stating, “Given the extent of transmission throughout the world, we now have to consider how society might concurrently suppress and live with the virus and reach an endemic state for years to come.”

Living with COVID must happen, even though one of the documents warns that “an extreme event could emerge at any time.” The Mail states that such an event could be the “spread of a vaccine-busting new strain” or as the document notes, “severe supply chain issues” with booster jabs. One document warns of “an unforeseen event or combination of events” that would “leave us in a worst case scenario with no end in sight.”

With the lives of countless thousands at stake, the priorities of the media, who are at one with the government’s agenda, is to tell everyone to look the other way. One question posed to Johnson during Monday’s COVID-19 press conference by Channel 4’s Ayshah Tull, was framed in reference to the remarks of Sir Nick Carter: “Do you agree with head of armed forces that the UK must be ready for war with Russia?”