Coronavirus cover-ups!

Yesterday came the alarming news that one third of coronavirus deaths in the UK take place in care homes! Today I read that more than 4,300 people in care homes across England and Wales died from Covid-19 in the last fortnight. Imagine having found a place in a decent care home for your elderly relative (not an easy thing to do by all accounts), having to sell said elderly relative’s house to fund that stay, and then discovering that it is not at all a place of safety after all.

Surely it’s obvious, even to the totally non-scientifically-minded, that a place with lots of vulnerable elderly folk and with workers who come and go, bringing who knows what germs from the outside world, was almost bound to turn into a hotbed of disease.

Then there are the people in those homes who have died from non-Covid-related illnesses because they were not taken to hospital to be treated as hospitals were full of Covid-19. It beggars belief!

At the other end of the age range vulnerable young people, socially vulnerable rather than necessarily physically vulnerable, are suffering as youth clubs they attended close, counselling services turn into telephone consultations, and support networks disappear.

And now comes news of Kawasaki syndrome, an illness affecting children, possibly related to Covid-19. Sixteen years ago, I read in an article from Italy, Kawasaki syndrome was recognised as another coronavirus and given the label NL63. The Bergamo district in Italy usually has a handful of cases every year, with maybe 2 or 3 being really serious. In the last month they have had about 20, all of them serious, most occurring when the district was at the peak of its Covid-19 outbreak. Fortunately all the children have recovered well. Cases have also occurred in other notable Covid-19 hotspots such as London, Madrid and Lisbon. Doctors and scientists are investigating a link. In the midst of this we are all anxious about the nation’s children returning to school.

Yesterday I also watched this very worrying BBC panorama documentary about our government’s handling of the pandemic. Quite shocking are not only the actions taken or not taken once the pandemic was upon us but the lack of preparation for a situation that was foreseen and known for years to be not just likely but pretty well inevitable.

• Checks on supposed stockpiling revealed no gowns bought, no visors bought, no swabs, no bodybags!! 
• And there were unbelievable semi-lies about how much PPE was available. 
• Counted as PPE were items such as paper towels, standard cleaning products, and detergent.
• Pairs of gloves were counted as two items, giving the impression of better provision. 

You really could not make it up.

And consequently NHS centres used home-made equipment, took donations from schools and laboratories, bought their own equipment privately, and in some cases used inadequate plastic aprons and gowns made from bin-bags. Factories in the UK say they were not approached by the government to make PPE.

This article tells of a Derbyshire women’s clothing manufacturer which is going to make 12,500 surgical gowns for local hospitals after they worked together to develop a reusable version of the vital protective equipment. Apparently these gowns can be washed up to 100 times and still retain their protective barrier qualities. Christopher Nieper, the manufacturer’s chief executive, said: “We have enough fabric to make 12,500 gowns. If these are washed 100 times they could potentially save the NHS buying 1.25m disposable gowns. We offered our suggestion of a reusable gown in this exact fabric four weeks ago. It’s a great pity the Deloitte team, responsible for procurement of gowns [across the NHS] didn’t grasp the potential of reusable equipment and has shown no interest in our British manufacturing capacity.”

Why have things like this been happening?

And yet, according to the journalist Gaby Hinsliff, some 60% of Britons think that the government has handled the epidemic well. Conservative voters might not want to admit that they made a mistake but what about those who did not vote for this government. One explanation Ms Hinsliff offers is that many of us, those of us not trapped in small flats with a bunch of hard to occupy children and a possibly abusive partner, those of us with the financial means to get by, have not really been touched by the economic meltdown and so are coping better than expected. Maybe so. But quite a lot of us who fall into that group are not taken in by it all.

In the meantime as a nation we go out and clap for the NHS and praise their efforts. But as one NHS worker said in the Panorama documentary:

 “calling us heroes just makes it okay when we die.”

Quite so!

But up at the top of the news headlines today is the news that Carrie Symonds has given birth to Boris Johnson’s son. Well, congratulations to them. Does that make everything right with the world? The cynics among us wonder of the PM will take paternity leave!

That’s all. Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!