Day 55, oh dear, will this ever bloody end?
All in all for me it’s been a good day. I stayed up stupidly late messaging with someone, and yes, I drank wine, and gin. I’m feeling relaxed and a little groggy. I’ve managed 3 short walks, perhaps another one later. Little of what I meant to do has gotten done but the weather is glorious so that’s OK.
A few moments of loneliness which is still an odd sensation for me, and unique to lockdown. I miss hugs. I miss being around people. It is what it is. I’ll be meeting up with another friend midweek so good times to be had! Of course we’ll be chatting at an appropriate social distance.
But in the wider scheme of things, judging from yesterday’s protests and various antics around the country over the last week or so, and that some places in England may have not yet reached the peak, we’ve got a very long way to go.
Arguments about schools going back continue. Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office Minister, is ‘confident’ that teachers and pupils will be safe to go back. It’s up to local authorities to look at their responsibilities. The science behind why schools should reopen on 1 June has not yet been published. I’m yet to find anyone I know who thinks it’s a good idea. And there’s still a lot we don’t know. It looks like children get infected at about the same rate as adults, but they don’t tend to be as badly affected. What we don’t yet know is how infectious they are. This is why the science behind this is so important to understand.
Again a lot of handing over blame to local areas. I wouldn’t be surprised if the government’s disastrous approach to care homes starts getting blamed on local authorities given their social care responsibilities. I think the public view will be that this is down to central government and that is where accountability sits.
The government’s policy approach is a mess, messaging is unclear, and recent polls indicate a rapid shift in opinion with approval ratings dropping significantly over the last week. My gut feeling is that people would have a different view if only government could admit the mistakes that have been made, and what’s being done to rectify them. There’s also a real need to talk to city leaders outside London.
The UK’s public health response to the crisis was eviscerated in a Friday commentary in The BMJ. Missed opportunities, a week public health system, a narrow scientific view taken – well worth a read.
The only plus at the moment is that numbers of hospitalisations and deaths are dropping. 10,035 are in hospital, a drop of 15% from last week. There have been an additional 170 deaths (excluding Northern Ireland due to technical issues), bringing to total to 34,636.
As we move forward, it will be increasingly important to see a region by region breakdown. We now know that rates of infection are different across regions. In London, the R value is 0.4. Put very crudely, if 10 people are infected, they’ll pass it on to 4 people. In the North East and Yorkshire, it’s a very different story with an R value of 0.8, meaning in crude terms for every 10 people infected, they will go on to infect another 8. There’s not much wiggle room to ensure we don’t get surges of new infections and that numbers of deaths don’t shoot up.
It’s strange times. I never thought I’d be here on a Sunday afternoon writing about things like R values.
So that’s it for Day 55. Stay safe, stay well, and stay home!