I can't wait till we have a "figurehead like Tim" (gawd bless 'im) telling us what to do! We'll be looking back nostalgically to the days of de Pfeffel and DoorMatt, and the comparitive comfort of mere ineptitude and dithering. Having barred myself from Wetherspoons after being suspected of preparing to do a runner with my beer rather than paying for it like a civilised chap, I don't expect I'll be welcome on the barricades at the Bankers Draft when the glorious day arrives, but I await the outcome with a modicum of interest nevertheless.
Come On You Hatters!
See this Guardian piece by an NHS doctor working in a hospital in London, rebutting some of the myths (or wishful thinking) about Covid-19.
Another bizarre claim is that our hospitals are empty. This despite several trusts now recording major incidents as they risk being overwhelmed, and the national database showing England and Wales has more Covid patients admitted than at the spring peak, and climbing.
And, the worst myth of all: “Covid only kills the infirm and the elderly.” While age is a significant factor, we are routinely seeing patients in their 30s and 40s on ICU. Data from Scotland shows the average age of admitted ICU patients is 61, and more than 85% were living completely independent lives before they were sick. It could be any of us, or someone close to us.
“It’s just like every winter for the NHS.” Firstly, winter in this country for the health service is no garden of delights. It is an ever-worsening pandemonium resulting from an underfunded, understaffed and under-resourced health service grinding on, fuelled by the goodwill of its workers. That being said, now that we face a virus that can cause such rapid deterioration on top of our annual cataclysm, and can so utterly overwhelm intensive care departments, we are indeed facing an altogether worse proposition. On Wednesday alone, 981 people died of Covid.
The virus has returned in full and terrifying force. But public goodwill seems not to have done so to the same degree as in spring. The attacks from Covid deniers are a kick in the teeth. Their claims cause outrage among staff exhausted by shifts, only to have their lived experience, their sacrifice and their suffering, and the suffering of the patients in front of them, denied.
This pandemic is gruelling. The measures to control it impinge on our quality of life, hurt our freedoms, undermine our rights. But to demand rights and deny responsibilities isn’t rebellion, it’s adolescence. The inner world of medics is fast becoming a war zone. And once again it is hidden from public view, except for those unlucky enough to find themselves on the inside, as patients. For those sceptics demanding to see this world with their own eyes, I hope your demands are never met for your own sake.
Come On You Hatters!
We're going to need a new 'Lockdown 3' thread soon, but in the meantime here's some more rebuttal of the wishful thinking myths, in the Observer this weekend:
“We are so short staffed and we don’t have enough of the non-invasive ventilator machines that can hold patients until they can be transferred to intensive care units [ICUs].”
Dr Hossain, [a jumior doctor], and her colleagues in the south-west London hospital where she works have to make almost impossible decisions about who gets what and who gets moved.
“We do a risk-benefit analysis based on age, number of comorbidities and sometimes based on the amount of resources we have,” she says. “[A patient] could be an ICU candidate, but we don’t have a bed. Our hands are tied. It makes me want to cry.”
This weighs heavily on the staff, who are battling fatigue, stress and exhaustion. Hossain rarely has time to eat properly and struggles to stay hydrated because she is so busy. Two of the five doctors on her ward are off with Covid, leaving the remaining three covering their shifts. “There are times when we just collectively break down. There are times when we can’t take it any more,” she says. “I remember me and the nurses just held each other in the clinical room.”
Come On You Hatters!