Learning to live with Covid-19

The number of people who have died from the coronavirus Covid-19 is now 44,000. Those are the official figures, but any figures from this government are not to be trusted. The number of deaths above the five-year mean is running at over 60,000 and that’s certainly a better guide. The truth is that testing has been so bad that many people have died of Covid-19 without that being put on the death certificate.

The death rate has also been worryingly high. You’d have around 1 in 20 chance of death, if you catch it, although that figure is distorted by the fact that this is a disease which strikes the elderly. If you’re under 30, you’re basically fine (there’s more risk of being killed in a road accident) but the risk increases steadily the older you are, or if you have an “underlying medical condition” such as diabetes, bad heart or respiratory disease. Obesity is also a major risk-factor

More than 20,000 of the official deaths (so around half) have been in care homes. When news of the virus first emerged, we were told by government that there was nothing to worry about; when it was clear that it was coming to the UK, the government wanted to adopt a herd-immunity policy, allow it to spread through the population and then die out. It was only when scientists modelled the effects – half a million dead and the NHS in meltdown – that they acted.

A full lock-down was implemented, people were not allowed out of home, except for an hour’s exercise each day and for essential food shopping. The government, fearing hospitals would be hit by a wave of seriously ill people, ordered that everyone who could be should be discharged and all routine work was put on hold. With no testing in place, thousands of old people were discharged into care homes, some of them carrying Covid-19, hence the dreadful toll on the most vulnerable section of society.

The NHS has survived. Massive emergency hospitals bult in exhibition centres were never needed and the number of intensive-care beds was sufficient. Basically, anyone over 70 wasn’t put into intensive care and the UK developed a system of treating the disease using a mask feeding pressurised oxygen, rather than full intubation.

Supermarket shelves were emptied by panic buying – toilet rolls, hand wash, baked beans, pasta, flour and rice could not be found. The roads were empty, there were no planes visible in the sky and people avoided each other in the street. Only this week, a couple of old people (clearly very frightened) shouted at me to get away. I was 30 yards away, but they didn’t want me any nearer!

When cases were first reported in Europe (in Italy), we were due to go skiing in France, where there were very few cases, seemingly nothing to worry about and the government advice remained to wash your hands frequently and carry on as normal. We arrived at La Plagne on Saturday night at 7pm and at 9pm, we heard the resort had been closed. We decided to sit tight and see what happened. On Monday, all of France was locked down. You were not to leave your house without good reason.

We decided to cut and run. Sam and Lucy, who were holidaying with us, could not get back to Jersey and so came to Thorney. The run of an almost deserted autoroute back to Calais was quite stressful. Would we be turned back? Were we allowed to travel home? Margaret was very anxious, but it wouldn’t be logical to prevent us from getting back to England. Surely, they’d be glad to see the back of us. “Unprecedented” became a common word in almost every news report.

Sam had to get back to Jersey to finish his notice (they were in the final stages of moving back to the UK) but with the house to be sold in a few weeks, nurseries closed and a compulsory quarantine in force, it was decided it was best for Lucy, Arthur and Saoirse to stay with us. Sam booked an easyJet flight from Luton, but when we got there, no aircraft were flying. I ran him to the station and he managed to get a train to Gatwick, book and hotel and a BA flight the next day! easyJet later claimed that no flights had been cancelled and wouldn’t offer a refund, so Sam was one of many people who have been unable to get money/deposits back from holiday companies.

The house sale was stressful. Getting all the paperwork together was a problem. Lucy couldn’t be there to sign documents and the UK government ordered a full lockdown the night before she was to go to a solicitor in Peterborough to have a document notarised. Would she have to go to Jersey? Could she get to Jersey? Even if we could get the documents signed, would the Jersey courts be open to allow the sale to be finalised?

Eventually, it all worked out. We managed to find a retired JP in Thorney, who was able to sign the documents as a witness and we maintained social-distancing rules by handing them through his lounge window for signature. The courts stayed open and the sale went through.

Sam managed to get a flight out of Jersey (to Southampton) and a taxi back to Thorney and a locked-down UK.

Selling the house was done, the next challenge was buying a house in locked-down Britain. They had agreed to buy a house in Soham and had agreed a date at the end of April to complete. This was almost as stressful as selling in Jersey. Eventually, the sale was renegotiated and went through at the end of May and they were able to move in a week later in June.

Deaths in the UK have been far higher than other European countries. Our government has made a complete hash of it. We locked down two weeks too late. Despite knowing what was happening in other European countries (especially Italy and Spain), we stayed open and major events such as Cheltenham Festival, an England Six-Nations game and a Liverpool-Madrid European Cup match were all allowed to go ahead. We ignored our early warning and didn’t act until the disease was rife throughout the country.

This is what happens when you have government based on an old-boys’ network, when who you know or who has done you favours matters more than being the best person for the job.

Sometimes, life has seemed like a bad dream; although it has (in truth) affected us little. Apart from some minor irritations such as queuing to get into shops, no pubs, no cafes, no football, no bike racing, we have been perfectly happy. I don’t know if that will last. There are going to be massive job losses and the economy shrank by more than 20 per cent in March, when we were only partially locked down.

For the past two weeks, we have been staying in Joyce Jones’ second home in Norfolk (Upper Sheringham) while Tom, Lucy, Julia, Aureliano and Florencia live in our house. They’ve just finished a two-week quarantine having managed to get a flight home from Quito.

Ecuador has been hard hit by the pandemic, with airports closed, a curfew in place and strict, stay-at-home policies applied. Lucy’s dad, Carlos, has been hard at work in the hospital in Ambato and has also lost his elder sister to Covid-19. We’re used to flu epidemics and the threat of something worse, but this wasn’t on our radar at all. It isn’t unprecedented, of course, despite what the politicians say. Spanish Flu killed millions 100 years ago and we’ve suffered pandemics of the Black Death (bubonic plague) and something called ‘The Sweat’ in Tudor Times.

Will there be a vaccine developed later in the year? Will we have to establish herd immunity? Will we be able to catch Covid-19 more than once? At the moment, we don’t know the answer to any of those questions and in an age where we expect our science and knowledge to be greater than the power of nature, it’s not a comfortable position.