Government figures, issued yesterday, provide the following details: “As of 9am on 31 March 2020, a total of 143,186 people have been tested, of which 25,150 were confirmed positive. As of 5pm on 30 March 2020, of those hospitalised in the UK, 1,789 have died”.
As things develop, I increasingly feel that the government has been incredibly slow to react (or even prepare) for the pandemic… it wasn’t until 1 March that Johnson held his first COBRA meeting.
A couple of days ago, we learnt that as many as 25% of doctors were off sick or in isolation. There is a huge shortage of ventilators and, if the virus continues to spread at its current rate, not enough nurses available to operate the equipment. Even now, there is a massive lack of protective clothing/equipment for NHS staff, care workers etc. The vulnerability of NHS workers is shameful… and, as the problem gets worse, there will be more staff off sick or in isolation… and therefore even more pressure on the remaining staff (and volunteers).
Testing for the virus has been appalling slow (this from The Guardian, 30 March: The government claimed that their daily 10,000 testing target had been reached.
“However, it turned out only 9,114 tests had been carried out… on Friday – falling to 8,278 tests on 4,908 patients on Saturday. The figures are well below the 10,000 daily tests promised by the government on 11 March and cast doubt on whether it would hit the next target of 25,000 daily tests within a fortnight. It shows the UK is lagging behind other countries such as Germany, which is testing 70,000 people daily, despite the World Health Organisation’s advice for countries to ‘test, test, test’”.
It seems to me that if the number of coronavirus cases gets beyond a certain figure then, given the huge pressure this will have on the resources of the NHS, that there could well come a time when the government has to make some incredibly difficult decisions. It would be impractical to try to treat everyone, so guidelines/rules would have to be drawn up regarding who can and should be treated. It seems only right (to me) that this should exclude the over-70s (in fact, I’ve seen reports suggesting that the ‘age limit’ might be put as low as 65).
This is obviously pretty sobering stuff! Suddenly, I find myself trying to recall the last time I hugged each family member… and realising that perhaps THAT would be the last time I was able to do so… and desperately wishing for a chance to hug them all ONE more time (I know)! In such a scenario, I have this rather beautiful vision of being able to use a magic wand to conjur up just a day in each of their individual company (completely unknown to them that this would the last time we’d meet up)… to do silly things; to laugh and joke; to recall particular memories; to walk along a beach together (maybe us all staying at Upper Saltings in St Ives?); to enjoy a meal together… and to tell them how much I love them.
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