Coronavirus

Fixed

 

Don't you just hate it when people do that

 

They can attempt to dumb down the stats as much as they like but the reality is this ... we have been visiting the mother-in-law in a care home for over 12 months and it's sad when you hear that one of the residents has passed away between visits ... but that seems to be infrequent - they put up little epitaphs.

In contrast one Glasgow home has lost 16 since first having an inmate diagnosed with the virus and one in Luton 15 ... that is on a completely different scale. This virus is a massacre for the elderly and those with underlying health issues ... we are also losing NHS staff and other front line workers on an unprecedented scale. No amount of 'modelling' can hide that.

 

You’re too touchy about this, mate.

It’s not an attempt to fiddle statistics. It’s an explanation of how the deaths are being counted. Many have died after testing positive for Covid-19 but they aren’t sure if that has been the main contributing factor or none at all. That’s what they’re now trying to look at. Many of these deaths were probably going to occur with or without Coronavirus and they want to look at that in more detail.

It talks about a young guy being reported as the youngest death in the UK at some point after testing positive for Covid-19 but the hospital later released a statement saying that Covid-19 wasn’t the reason for the young guys death although he did have the virus.

 

Please don't take this as a dig but the Children's Commissioner raised this in a completely disengenuious msnner on Saturday which got me thinking.

Firstly, for clarity I work as a qualified HLTA in a school with kids for Social, Emotional and Mental Health issues.

The problem with the suggestions about the summer holidays being cancelled (suggested by the Children's Commissioner) or changed are many and varied.

1. Term time staff are actually only paid for approximately 46 weeks a year. Six weeks of the school holidays are actually unpaid. To ensure staff get a pay check every month our pay is annualised so we do not get left without pay for 6 weeks.
It is a myth that we get 13 weeks paid holiday every year.

2. School staff have to book their holidays in the school holidays so most staff have already made plans.
So have many parents.
Obviously this is dependent on travel restrictions being lifted to allow prople to go on holiday.

3. We are actually still working.

a. Many schools are still open for key worker kids and have staff in on a shift basis.

b. Virtually all staff are working by preparing work online and marking it etc.
In my school staff are in touch with families 3 times a week, we have designed individual activities and games for children to help keep them busy and entertained and have sent out fun physical activities that can be done indoors for those who do not have gardens.
(As an example...I sorted out maths questions based around horses for one of our kids, forwarded a exercise plan and came up with a set of art and play activities for the kids to do with their families. )

c. We are also doing online training courses that are necessary (various child protection issues, Autism awareness training, mental health challenges etc.)
I have completed 5 courses in the 3 weeks my school has been shut.

d. Many staff are volunteers ... I have volunteered to work in local schools if they need addition support (due to experience and the need for a full DBS check school and play staff are needed to fulfill this role). I have also volunteered to support the families of our students and have been involved in making emergency intervention plans and I volunteer to speak to people in isolation who are struggling to cope as my mental health training is useful.

e. Many school staff have been self isolating due to exposure from families (before the lockdown) who then became sick. My school is tiny 30 staff...3 became ill and 5 others had to self isolate.

I raise all these points, not because I
think school staff are something special but because the children's commissioner has implied that we have been sitting with our feet up chilling when in fact like most people we have been working and supporting our communities.

To now claim we should work for free through the holidays is an insult...tbh it is as bad as staff at huge multinationals or premier league clubs furloughing staff and leaving them on 20% less wages.

I aint pissed with you but the Children's Commissioner and the politicians suggesting this can **** right off...apart from the staff ordered to isolate we all continued working in my school for almost 2 weeks after mainstream schools shut. We work with violent spitty kids who need physically removal to protect themselves and others and we never hid from that so for these ****ers to imply we have had it easy is plain ****ishness of the highest order.

Sorry for this being so long but their isn't a short way to give a honest answer.

 

I agree. But it's never been about fear for me, it's always been about the decision making. You can be lulled on to "the pathway" without being fully informed and often when it's too late.

As well as this, the issue of end of life raises the fact that in certain serious illnesses, we are lagging way behind the rest of the world in survival rates. Sometimes end of life is far to easily accepted as the likely outcome in this country.

 

I'm not touchy at all ... just cut through the spin and tell it as it is ... the stats from the care homes are not selective ... they are real deaths and demonstrate the stark difference between non-Covid and Covid reality

 

Wife is out for her daily exercise going for a walk, has had a guy walk right next to her, she makes a comment about social distancing and he’s followed her up the road shouting abuse at her. In his 50s-ish apparently.

She thinks he’s gone into a supermarket but isn’t sure if he walked passed it.

To go out in my car with a spade to try and find and twat the **** or to let it go...decisions, decisions.

 

Go easy with the swing ... apparently there is a shortage of digging tools

 

What a ****.

 

Agree I've seen the same though I've just moved away without saying anything tbh. There's some right fcking *****s about. From what I've seen they're just thick.

 

I have a view in that regardless of all this, in that there is something I'm finding very concerning. I saw on a news channel a good week back, where some of those in care homes were sigining end of life documents, without their families being present (because of COVID) ie not to resuscitate, and all the other stuff.

The question that would come first to my mind is why did 16 elderly residents die in one care home and 15 die in another ie why not in hospital!?

Especially when in news briefings, government will make claim to circa 2,000 spare beds. I just think this is a sorry state of affairs, when its become acceptable to let our elderly die.

 

Chaos will have a spare shovel if you need one

 

I agree ... my other half is **** scared about her mother ... we've heard there might be 5 with symptoms in the home. Don't think any have been transferred to hospital as yet.

 

Tbph it's part reason why I kicked off a bit earlier over the released scoring criteria, it's just pissing me off, where it's becoming acceptable to let the old folk die. Obviously in a crisis situation like Lombardy, hard decisions have to be made like that, I accept it. But when we play down numbers, and stuff like this is going on in our care homes, it makes my fooking blood boil!

 

They’re not admitting any care home residents to hospital, they’re to be left there to die.

 

That's just shocking. Then they need to be counting care homes in their figures.

 

We've been saying that all along ... I can see no other reason for the quoting 'deaths in hospital' each day if not to dumb down the overall death statistics ...