Truly horrific
They have cast lots for my people (Joel 3:3)
I listened with growing horror last night to File on 4: The care home catastrophe. Any single moment could have shocked to the core on its own. The nurse who died when she contracted the virus from a patient while PPE sat in a nearby cupboard unused because no one told her the patient was infected. The care home forced to take an infected patient just sent home from hospital in an ambulance that appeared unannounced at the door, patient in the back and relatives in tow. The pandemic simulation that showed the care sector was extremely vulnerable and yet which remained gathering dust for nearly 4 years. All of these could be the most shocking. But not for me. For me it was the failure to report or even record deaths from COVID-19.
Let me put this simply. One third of all reported deaths due to COVID-19 have been in care homes. These numbers were kept out of the figures for weeks and are only recently included. Much worse than that, most of the deaths in care homes are in untested residents. I wonder if you've spotted the implication of that fact. Let me spell it out just in case. Take one example where there were 12 deaths in a care home with only 2 confirmed as COVID-19. So the other 10 do not appear in the statistics. Therefore, if we assume that this is replicated across the country, which is not an outrageous assumption, only one fifth of deaths in care homes have been reported. Then the true figure is not one third of deaths from coronavirus are in care homes but five sevenths. That's over 70% of all deaths from COVID-19 are in care homes. And the total number who have died from the virus is more than double the recorded figure.
Now I am not a suspicious person but this has got me going. I know governments massage statistics. My favourite is the way our unemployment figures are heralded as historically low, quietly forgetting that the government have removed all 16 year old school leavers and huge swathes of 18-21 year olds at minimal cost by keeping them in education. This I can accept as simply sharp practice, but a failure to recognise the absolute disaster that has been meted out on our care homes when their residents are just the people we have locked down to protect is verging on the criminal. Truly someone has been casting lots as to who will die and the lot fell on the most vulnerable.
 |
| A view from the top |
As we are ALL aware..people are living longer..80~90yr olds are quite common now, even
ReplyDelete100..!
But! The powers to be..call them what you like, government, local authorities, charities,
find them an inconvenience..to much of a nuisance, and far to costly to keep..! :(
Goodness! Euthanasia springs to mind..! But! As far as l'm concerned, even most families,
want nothing to do with there elderly parents..putting them into care homes..where as, in
Sicily, family is the most important thing there is..families, live, and look after there aging
family..! Why? Because they 'LOVE' them..!
If this problem in care homes had not been exposed..it would have continued..if there's one
way, to reduce an ever growing population..that is to let the elderly..DIE! :(.
There are some awful things happening with this virus..last week a 36yr old nurse, working
on the front line, married with three children, caught the virus, and died two days later, on
the same day, a 103yr old lady was being wheeled out of hospital after beating the virus, and
was going home..! Where are the answers..? Where..?
It is so awful to contemplate what is happening, isn't it George? But we must do so. We need that awareness in all of us to truly realize how much these care home residents are at risk. Also we need to truly appreciate the huge risks care and nursing staff are enduring. I have just read about a 32 yr old Florida male nurse who has previously struggled with drug addiction for years. He attends the 12 step programme whenever he can. But as soon as it became a video necessity since the pandemic began, he finds he cannot cope without meeting his 12 step 'friends' face to face. His Mother says he has been struggling for weeks and weeks.
ReplyDeleteAt a Florida Hosp. he volunteered to work in ICU ward but had insufficient PPE. His mask fell off one day treating a very ill Covid19 patient, putting tubes down his throat. Some liquid spurted onto his face and he developed severe mental health worries with the worry of it all. He didn't come home oneday. Later. he was found dead from an overdose in his car, in a parking lot.
I still very much believe in God when I see the beauty in this world all around me. But when I think of the abuse. violence and neglect of the world that us humans have created, I sometimes doubt the existence of a loving God, as I am sure many people do. For the last few years, I have been especially concerned over the abuse and murder of innocent children and also animals. I deplore the so called 'wet markets' wherever they are. Live animals are hacked to death in front of shoppers for their dinner. Where is God in all this? My Baptist counsellor has lent me a book called 'Where is God in a Messed Up World', by a Bishop, Roger Carswell. Heather says it should in some way help me to understand why people need to suffer. I am so far on Chapter 2.
I also try to believe in Jesus, following his example and helping as many people as I can. I am not sure if this is enough. Maybe I should be out there in the midst of trouble doing far more.
Please keep up your blogs. They are so interesting and fulfilling.
Kathy
I started out, like everybody else, I guess, that an outbreak of such seriousness and with such potential devastation would have scientists and governments reeling. Now I find that not only did this government react painfully slowly to all the warnings, it now seeks to deliberately massage figures. The BBC Radio programme, "More or Less" has recently highlighted the discrepancy between what we are being told publicly and the actual numbers and the way they have manipulated to put the handling of the crisis in the best possible light. One needs to look no further at the way the 'testing' figures have been presented to include postal kits which haven't been either received or used.
ReplyDeleteOdd what shocks you. Saw a bit of PMQ yesterday and Boris' criticism of Keir Starmer as having a 'negative tone' did just that. It seemed so off hand and dismissive of the sufferings unleashed on a nation.
DeleteAs an addendum, I wasn't far off. Excess deaths over this time last year from all causes stands at 60,000 and growing. It is likely that the majority of those are a direct result of the virus and represent untested deaths. This doesn't even take into account the reduction in deaths on the roads or due to alcohol and other activities massively reduced by lockdown.
ReplyDelete