20,0000 dead and counting

More than 20,000 people have now died from Covid-19 in the UK (probably another 40-50% that when home and care home deaths are taken into consideration), We only get figures from those who have died in hospital and the health service will not admit some people to hospital. What’s the point in putting and 85-year-old on a ventilator?

There’s obviously lot more deaths caused by Covid-19 – people whose cancer treatment has been delayed and important operations postponed due to lack of capacity in hospitals.

This isn’t a good time to be old or ill.

The news on radio, TV and newspapers is universally depressing, so much so that I have turned the radio off this morning and I’m playing my “Driving Music” playlist on iTunes - Hetty and the Jazzato Band are cheering me up a little.

We have been in lockdown for a month, allowed out of the house only for an hour’s exercise each day or to buy essentials (such as food). It could be a lot tougher – I’m allowed to go to the allotment to work, we have a large garden and the weather has been pretty good. However, I can’t shake off a weird feeling about everything and a low-level anxiety which is always in the background.

Lucy, Arthur and Saoirse are staying with us at present. When France went into lockdown and we had to abandon our ski holiday in mid-March, they couldn’t get a ferry back to Jersey until later in the week, so they came back to Thorney. Sam flew to Jersey later in the week and then had to self-isolate at home while seeing patients by video or telephone consultation.

We don’t really know what is happening about anything in our lives from one day to another and it’s been even worse for Sam and Lucy. They were supposed to move back to the UK in the middle of April and have had to negotiate the stress that the crisis would prevent them selling their house, buying a new one or even getting off the island.

The sale was completed to schedule, but Lucy and Sam had to sign power-of-attorney documents for it to go ahead. Sam drove to the solicitor and they watch him sign through the window of his car. Lucy had arranged to go to Greenwood’s in Peterborough to get her document notarised, but then the government closed everything down with three hours’ notice from midnight the day before.

It seemed there was no alternative but for Lucy to fly back to Jersey, sign the documents and then fly back. We arranged an early-morning flight from Gatwick and a flight back on Friday evening. We’d look after the children. Then Sam discovered that if she flew back, she’d have to stay in Jersey for two weeks. What now? It looked as if she might have to go back with the children because she wouldn’t want to leave them with us for two weeks, but then a lawyer friend of Sam’s suggested that the document could be witnessed by a range of other people – a judge, a solicitor, JP, magistrate …

I called Ken Sheraton, a judge I know who lives in the village, but he was stranded in Wales at their holiday cottage. He did suggest a JP who lived in the village, so we managed to get it signed by handing it through the top window of his front room – very strange, but very welcome. It was sent to the solicitor yesterday and the courts in Jersey remained open for business and for the sale to go through.

We then heard that Condor had ceased all passenger services on its ferries, so Sam was not be able to leave Jersey with his car, which had been the plan. He flew back to Southampton (the only route left to get between Jersey and the UK) and the NHS paid for a taxi back to Thorney.

Their house purchase in Soham has been delayed by the lockdown and some feet dragging by the vendors. It’s a tough call, they would like somewhere settled to live, but it might be better to rent for a year and see what happens to house prices. If we get a 20 per cent hit to the economy (which some are predicting is the best we can hope for) then house prices are bound to fall … probably … maybe.

Anyway, they now have a completion date for the end of May, which will be something of an achievement considering the circumstances. Sam is due to start work the following Monday, so it will be a pretty frantic few days for them.