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.

What strange times we're living in

These are strange times. I’m sitting at my desk in my study at home writing this piece. I’m not allowed to go out of the house except for daily exercise or to buy essential food items and the whole country is in lock-down due to Covid 19 – a virus no-one had heard of a few months ago, but which has now spread to almost every country in the world and is killing thousands of people.

This is the worst global pandemic since the Spanish Flu outbreak in 1919-20. We’ve often been warned that sooner or later mankind would be faced with this type of challenge – well folks, here it is!

There have been other scares down the years. Polio spread fear into people in the 1940s and ‘50s; and, in recent years, we’ve has SARS, MERS, Swine Flu, Bird Flu and Ebola crises, although none has caused deaths on the scale of this.

Coronavirus, now renamed Covid 19, has an estimated mortality rate of around two per cent, although it’s higher in some countries and lower in others. It is most dangerous to old people or those with underlying health issues and it is having a profound effect on everyone in this country and beyond.

It started in China, in Wuhan Province (I’d never heard of Wuhan until February) when it jumped from animals – possible bats, possibly civets, kept in live animal markets in China – to humans.

Unlike other viral scares, Covid 19 has proven to be extremely virulent. It spreads like wildfire and it does so partly because infected and infectious victims don’t show symptoms at first but can still pass on the virus. It kills by attacking the lungs, causing pneumonia, although many people suffer mild flu-like symptoms and may not even realise they have it.

Our government response has, of course been woeful. The administration that sent soldiers to face roadside bombs in canvas-sided Land Rovers, hasn’t even been able to deliver face masks to hospital staff, let alone plan an effective strategy to prevent the virus spreading.

Initial advice was to wash your hands for at least 20 seconds as often as possible. The borders were open, people were told to go about their business, go on holiday – keep the economy going. The government strategy was to allow “herd immunity” to develop, which means 80 per cent of the population need to get the disease. At some point, a couple of weeks ago, someone realised this meant 500,000 deaths and the National Health Service being overwhelmed.

They changed tack and started issuing stricter advice. Much of this was contradictory, all of it was muddled, so no-one did much except start panic buying so supermarket shelves were stripped of toilet paper, tinned food and pasta. Folk have also been bulk buying bread, milk and cheese. I guess we’ll reach a point where their freezers and store cupboards are full.

The country is now in complete lock-down. Pubs, restaurants, theatres, cinemas, museums, galleries and cafes are shut; football and sports events are cancelled (including the Olympics); all shops except food stores and pharmacies and most businesses (from hairdressers to notary publics).

Max and Inna are in Syston. Max is writing up his PhD and Inna is working from home. Tom, Lucia, Julia, Aureliano and Florencia are in Ecuador. They should have come back to the UK this week, but Ecuador is in lock-down and their flights were cancelled.

Sam is in Jersey, but Lucy, Arthur and Saoirse are here with us. They are due to move to the UK in April (in three weeks) but have to sell their home in Jersey and buy one in Soham while all the country is shut for business.

I have no idea what will happen. I expect to be alive this time next year, but I am in that danger area of over-65, so I shouldn’t be complacent. In a week’s time, the NHS will run out of intensive-care beds and ventilators, so if you develop severe pneumonia, it’s curtains!

I can go out to walk the dog and to shop, but I’m not supposed to get closer than two metres to anyone. I’ve been to the allotment today (that’s allowed) and I’ll go shopping on Friday. I just hope there’s something on the shelves.