WHERE IS THE ANGER – NO – WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE AND FURY??
As the UK continues to stumble through the Covid-19 pandemic our Government continues to avoid the truth of their incompetence and point undisguised fingers of blame at their scientific advisors and you, the public. At the same time they personally jump the testing queue and, in the case of our erstwhile Prime Minister, hide away in their grace and favour country retreat after supposedly recovering from the virus.
In the first case above would someone please tell me why Michael Gove’s 17 year old daughter was more in need of a Covid-19 test than any front-line NHS or Social Care workers, especially when pregnant healthcare workers are seemingly being pressured into going to work and when, tragically, one pregnant nurse succumbed to the disease!
Secondly, with regard to our cowardly PM, he supposedly had the virus and was admitted to St Thomas’s Hospital Intensive Care Unit when his condition deteriorated. Fortunately (!?) he didn’t need to be ventilated – which begs the question why was he put into an ICU bed? My personal experience of ICU (14 weeks from 3rd December 2015 at The Royal London hospital) was of 4 beds in a room, attended by a nurse per bed, each bed having all the necessary equipment as a standard fit – which included a ventilator. Now ask yourself would Johnson have shared a room with three other patients? Doubtful at the least in my opinion, even if there was an armed guard at the door. So then think about what the other three beds were being used for, but not for other Covid-19 sufferers who did need a ventilator that’s for sure. Now these comments are based on my experience of the beds in a room at the Royal London. If you troubled yourself to follow the link above to the St Thomas’s ICU department web-page you will have seen that two of their ICU wards each have 15 beds in them and the third 12 beds. Again ask yourself if Johnson would have shared? There is the possibility that he occupied an ICU bed, even though not needing the very scarce resource of a ventilator, at the expense of 11 or even maybe 14 patients. If that is the case how can that possibly be reasonable?
Why didn’t the Press question any of this??
Where is the outrage at this very preferential treatment when all around us innocent people and NHS and Social Care staff are dying???
FFS!
So now the blubbering coward is hiding away at Chequers with his pregnant partner while his scientific advisors and Cabinet colleagues are offered up as sacrificial lambs but, and this I find quite telling – his ‘buddies’ seem to have forgotten all about him as they audition to the wider Conservative Party membership for the role of next Prime Minister. Even at this, the darkest time the UK has faced since Dunkirk in 1940, the slime balls who are Tory MP’s are looking to advance their own careers.
Where is the anger, the fury this warrants?
The auditions aren’t going very well though are they? Matt Hancock started off as if he had an idea but the blew it – firstly promising 100,000 tests A DAY by the end of April last week and then last night coming up with his miracle cure for all the ills that have beset Social Care providers and workers for a decade and more – a bloody badge! FFS!! Then we have to recognise that the Government have abjectly failed to meet and overcome the challenges of providing enough Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to those who need a constant supply of it to do their jobs safely. I was staggered when he intimated that it was being wasted by people using the wrong type at the wrong time and then changing the guidance to suit the facts as they are – to hide that there isn’t enough for all the people who need it. My sister-in-law works at The Priory in Cheadle – it used to be Cheadle Royal, a psychiatric hospital – and she has been constantly denied PPE even though she works up close and personal with some very mentally ill people. Her management don’t seem to care yet her area of Health and Social Care provision is just as exposed to Covid-19 as any other. Now he wants to recruit tens of thousands of people into this extremely demanding job (in normal times) when Brexit has cut off the supply of workers from EU countries and Priti (by name only, nasty by nature) Patel’s Home Office is making it impossible for people to come here to work – and then there’s the cost of the NHS visa (assuming that would be applied to foreign applicants for the jobs). Add all that to the fact that when Social Care was dropped squarely in the lap of private industry, and so subject to market forces, this work became not worth paying for – a minimum wage job at best – who really would want to work at such risk to their (and their families) health for so little reward?
Patel was denied an audition for a long time and then when she got her chance could hardly peep over the top of the podium to look us all squarely in the eye while she spouted all the Government has to offer – their mantra of stay home, protect the NHS, save lives. As much as I support that it is really only their way of telling us that if this spreads it will be our fault for not staying at home, never mind the lack of PPE, never mind their delays responding to the warnings that were coming from China, then Italy and then Spain!
Rishi Sunak started well enough, offering the fruits of the money tree to keep the economy alive while we rode out the storm of Corona virus but then he showed his true colours by insisting that there will be no let-up in the rush to leave the EU – and it’s economic consequences – regardless of the now glaringly obvious Covid-19 driven economic disaster that is staring the Country in the face. FFS!
As for Dominic Raab – read John Crace here – I’ll say no more!
And then we come to the truth of the matter, the one thing we should all be incandescently angry about -= the appalling loss of life in the UK.
As I type this blog (15:19 16th April 2020) 12,396 people have died in the UK.
Twelve thousand, three hundred and ninety six people!
12,396
And that’s without including who knows how many deaths that have occurred outside of the hospital environment. This number is hard to determine due to the lag collating the data at the Office of National Statistics but from reading their excuses I believe we can add at least another 6,000 deaths to the number above – and that’s using a number that is 11 days old!
I’ve pulled the following text below from the link immediately above for your information :
Main points from latest release
• The provisional number of deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending 3 April 2020 (Week 14) was 16,387; this represents an increase of 5,246 deaths registered compared with the previous week (Week 13) and 6,082 more than the five-year average.
• Of the deaths registered in Week 14, 3,475 mentioned “novel coronavirus (COVID-19)”, which was 21.2% of all deaths; this compares with 539 (4.8% of all deaths) in Week 13.
• In London, nearly half (46.6%) of deaths registered in Week 14 involved COVID-19; the West Midlands also had a high proportion of COVID-19 deaths, accounting for 22.1% of deaths registered in this region.
• Of deaths involving COVID-19 registered up to Week 14, 90.2% (3,716 deaths) occurred in hospital, with the remainder occurring in hospices, care homes and private homes.
• Please note, where Easter falls in previous years will have an impact on the five-year average used for comparison.
So if we add 6,000 to today’s NHS number of 12.396 there’s 18,000 minimum and then if we extrapolate a little to guesstimate the 11 missing days we could perhaps bump that figure up to 20,000 or even more deaths – all down to this Government, their deliberate policies of austerity and their inaction back in the very early New Year.
No wonder Johnson is hiding away – who would want to be seen to be in charge – and therefore responsible for more preventable deaths than the Allies (UK, Canada and the USA) suffered in total on D-Day. Yes, that’s right. The Tories love the ‘battle’ analogy and there you have it.
The British armed forces lost about2,500 – 3,000 killed on the Normandy beaches on 6th June 1944.
Today we could be looking at a total of over 20,000 deaths to date – in a month or so!
20,000
Twenty thousand!
20,000
Where is the outrage at this figure?
Where is the fury??
And don’t tell me now isn’t the time to be asking these hard questions – if not now then when?
The Tories will try to sweep the answers under the carpet or point the blame elsewhere and must be challenged.
Jem’s Juke Box – well there’s only one song fitting for the way I feel right now – turn it up past 11 and sing along with me. Just click the link – trust me.