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User avatar
By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1895954
flybymike wrote:
Paultheparaglider wrote:
Yes, restrictions have been imposed, but from a stance of well intentioned paternalism.


Allison Pearson of The Telegraph describes the results of some well intentioned paternalism.

Killers have more rights than care home residents – it's a scandal that shames us all
I cannot recognise the nation where such things are taking place, yet I know that heartless place is our country

On Saturday night, I raised a glass of Prosecco to an unlikely freedom fighter. Mario Finotti suffered a fatal injury after he made a rope out of bedsheets, tied it around his waist and dropped out of the first-floor window of the care home where he had lived for more than a year in Papozze, a town in northern Italy. Signor Finotti was 91 years old.

According to reports, the director of the home said staff were shocked: “Mario Finotti was not suffering from any degenerative pathologies. It is not known what was going through his head because, from a psychological point of view, he was peaceful.”

Actually, it’s not terribly hard to imagine what was going through the elderly man’s head as he waited until dawn before lowering himself out of the window, summoning what strength remained to swing clear of the ledge. What else was it but one final act of daring, a bloody-minded refusal to accept Covid captivity? That same “lonely impulse of delight” that drove the poet WB Yeats’s Irish airman who, sensing that he will soon die, chooses, if only for one more day, one more minute, the exhilaration of flight.
The mayor of Papozze, Pierluigi Mosca, confirmed that “loneliness was a likely motive” for the attempted escape. A determined character who had never married, Mario was passionate about politics and would often drop in on Mosca in his office. Harsh Covid restrictions meant he was no longer able to leave the care home. Nor were family or friends allowed to visit. For the last three weeks of his life, the nonagenarian’s only contact with the outside world was via phone calls with his nephews and nieces.

Finotti’s great escape sounds like a crazy one-off, but it is symbolic of a universal predicament. Trapped inside our care homes, hospitals and institutions are men, women and young adults who languish, unvisited and isolated. Given the choice, they would choose hugs and reassurance from those they love (and who love them) over a sterile, zero-Covid bubble. The flesh may be weak, but the mind is out on that window ledge with Super Mario.

As I write what follows, I may struggle to contain my anger. Forget recriminations over No 10 parties, however thoughtless and hypocritical they may have been. What we are talking about is a vast, suppurating national scandal, a grievous wound to our shared humanity. Unimaginable barbarism is going on every hour of every single day in a land we once believed was kind and decent. Well, it isn’t. Not any more.
The suffering caused by puffed-up little public-health Hitlers, by safetyist care-home regulators, by Government ministers who look the other way in a shabby attempt to cover their backsides for the public inquiry, is despicable. This has to stop.

Louise’s mother has been in hospital for nearly four weeks. The hospital trust doesn’t permit visits. She caught Covid there and is now on oxygen. On Monday, Louise went to the ward and pleaded with the nurse to let her in to see her mum. Request refused.

“I watched 12 people entering and leaving the ward without any PPE, apart from blue paper masks, one of which was being worn below a porter’s chin. My poor mum is on her own, being fed through her vein, with no one able to see her. She’s now tested negative for Covid, as have I, and she’s in a side room on her own, so where’s the risk? My mum needs me. Allison, please can you write about this scandal? Please.” This has to stop.

Tim and Helen’s daughter was moved to a new residential home on October 1 last year. Since that date, she has endured 42 days of being locked in her bedroom with staff only visiting her periodically. “Our daughter is 36, a vulnerable, profoundly disabled but gregarious, fun-loving woman who enjoys being around people. So this must be torture for her.

“Her first isolation was after a stay in hospital with a urine infection. When she returned to the home, they followed government guidelines to the letter and kept her in her room for 14 days, despite the fact she provided two negative PCR tests in the 48 hours prior to hospital discharge and ongoing negative tests thereafter. They took over seven days to allow us to visit as essential care-givers. In the New Year, the home declared what the guidance calls an ‘outbreak’ – that is where two or more residents or staff test positive or have Covid symptoms. We understand it was one resident and seven staff testing positive without symptoms. All, we assume, are triple vaccinated.
“We were officially informed on December 31 that the home was going to prevent anybody other than staff leaving or entering, but that communal areas would remain open, with only the infected residents being isolated. (Government guidelines state that a home should get advice from the Health Protection Team and conduct a risk assessment.) However, on January 7, we had a video call with our daughter and discovered that all residents had been confined for the whole time in their rooms.

“We have complained to the care home provider. We have pointed out that our daughter is being held against her will, and they are in breach of her human rights unless a proportionate and justifiable case can be made for their action. To date, we have not received an answer. We were told that our daughter’s current period of solitary confinement would end on January 17, providing that there were no new cases.”

Let’s press pause for a second to consider this. The Supreme Court describes the “segregation” and “removal from association” of prisoners as “solitary confinement”. Segregation can be used as a punishment for adults who break the rules, although it is limited to 21 days. Prisoners can also be segregated if it “appears desirable, for the maintenance of good order or discipline or in his/her own interests”. There is no time limit for this, although after 42 days the governor of the prison must seek authorisation from the Secretary of State for it to continue.

Tim and Helen’s gregarious, fun-loving daughter has been segregated for 42 days and counting. Although she was perfectly healthy, her freedom to associate with others was summarily removed. What right of appeal do her parents have, Secretary of State? A murderer or a rapist has more rights than their daughter. This has to stop.
Sue’s mother is in a care home. The care home manager’s husband has Covid. The manager tested negative so she can still go to work. Sue’s mother tested negative, Sue tested negative. “But we can’t visit Mum, and Mum cannot leave the home. She cannot even leave her bed for 14 days, because the manager’s husband has Covid!” This has to stop.

It’s a Monday nine weeks ago. Adam’s terminally ill father is in hospital on antibiotics. Adam and his sister are told he has about two days to live. But a nurse tells them they can’t visit their father until he qualifies for “end-of-life” care on Friday, when his course of antibiotics finishes. “But the doctor says Dad will be dead by Wednesday,” Adam protests. The brother and sister are told that, if they give permission to halt the treatment, they can say goodbye in person to their father. This has to stop.

Mathew writes: “My mum had a stroke. We were not allowed to see her in hospital when she most needed us. She was scared and alone. I wrote to the hospital management and, after three weeks, my dad was allowed to visit. Both Mum and Dad had to wear full PPE, mask, plastic pinny and gloves. They weren’t allowed to hug, kiss or touch. Barbaric. They had a nurse sitting there watching to make sure they didn’t touch. The window was wide open and they both got very cold. Dad is a bit deaf and he couldn’t hear Mum through the mask. I am sending you a photo, Allison, of the nurse keeping watch over my poor parents. I wasn’t allowed in to see my mother, but I took the photo from the corridor.” This has to stop.
And here’s Sally: “Last January, my husband, who has a diagnosis of young-onset Alzheimer’s, was admitted to a specialist hospital for dementia. At the time, he could talk, walk, use the toilet and eat independently. As it was high-Covid time, I was not allowed to go with him or visit for five weeks. They told me he was constantly looking for me. He became very agitated and aggressive with staff, resulting in him spending over 100 hours in a seclusion room on 11 occasions. He developed Covid, cellulitis in his legs, wouldn’t sleep in his bed, had a seizure, allergic reactions and two bad falls to his head, all of which resulted in four trips to A&E.

“When he left to go into a nursing home in May, he was doubly incontinent, couldn’t feed himself, had lost his speech, was bent forward with poor mobility and required 24-hour one-to-one care. At a ‘best interest’ meeting, I was denied the right to bring him home. Now he has poor health. He is currently in hospital and as I am Covid-free I hope to visit soon. I strongly feel that if I had been able to go with him into the hospital, the outcome would have been much better. I lost my husband. I feel deep regret that I let him go.”

Even after all of the horrors listed above, John’s Campaign – which fights for the right of people with dementia to be supported by family carers – had to battle for Sally to be “allowed” to visit her husband in the acute hospital when he was refusing to eat. “They were going to tube-feed him, rather than allow his wife to come in and do it,” recalls Julia Jones, co-founder of John’s Campaign.

Having read a hundred stories like Sally’s and Adam’s and Sue’s and Tim and Helen’s, I feel almost chemically altered. The sadness seeps into your cells like icy water dripping into a cave. I cannot recognise the nation where such things are taking place, yet I know that heartless place is our country.
Early in the pandemic, many rules were devised by Brains-from-Thunderbirds types at the Department of Health and in Whitehall’s “Nudge Unit”. They lacked compassion and basic common sense, but people were threatened and ostracised if they dared challenge them. Yes, there are lots of good, kind nurses, doctors and carers in the system, but they were intimidated and uncertain about what they were “allowed” to offer desperate relatives.

Tomorrow, as the Plan B restrictions are lifted, much of the country will mercifully go back to normal. But not for hospital patients or residents of care homes. As Simon, a former inspector for the Care Quality Commission, wrote to the Planet Normal podcast: “Care homes will be left behind in a morass of badly written and unduly restrictive government guidance. My concern is they will become clinical ‘protection’ facilities, with constant testing, isolation and mask-wearing.”
Although omicron and a successful vaccination campaign have vastly reduced the risk to elderly and vulnerable people, the tinpot dictators at PHE and local authorities still can’t get enough of enforcing guidance. Care homes are locked down if only two Covid cases (either staff or residents) are recorded. I was staggered to learn that roughly half of all care homes are currently in lockdown. Some older people have hardly seen a person’s face for two years.

Residents are heartily sick of it, but they are treated as possible units of infection not as human beings with needs and desires. Most directors of care providers privately agree that testing should be stopped immediately and things allowed to return to the “old normal”. But, as a group, care providers are not well organised. Individual companies are reluctant to go against the guidance for fear of being picked off by the authorities. At some point, the social-care sector needs to take a stand against the patent madness of a PHE-mandated lockdown of an entire care home on the basis of just two asymptomatic cases.

In our hospitals, other monstrosities continue unchecked. A paediatrician tells me how much she hates the “widely adopted one-parent rule”, which means she has to break difficult news to either a mother or a father on their own, with parents unable to comfort each other or be together with their sick child. “Did the risks to staff wearing PPE (who were more likely to catch Covid outside the hospital) outweigh the harm of this brutal policy, which is still in place? I don’t think managers ever asked themselves the question,” she says.

Why didn’t they ask the question? What manner of society stipulates that a mother must hear the news that her child has cancer alone? Or that an 88-year-old grandfather must depart this life, also alone, in the name of keeping him “safe”?
The safetyism-gone-mad public health scientists will point out that 30,000 care home residents died of Covid (or, just as likely, “with” Covid). Perfectly true – but a third of care home residents die every single year. Sons and daughters, wives and husbands, will always feel sorrow that the person they love has dementia or is soon about to leave them. Now to sorrow is added fear. Fear of separation, fear of not being allowed to hold your dying parent’s hand, fear that no one will ever care for them as you would.
The Secretary of State can end this nation-shaming nightmare with a few keystrokes. Into the Health and Social Care Bill, which is currently going through Parliament, Sajid Javid could insert a clause which says that anyone who is disabled, be it by dementia, physical or mental frailty or sickness, should have an inalienable right to direct personal support from someone they love. As Julia Jones puts it: “In very simple terms, think of this as the right for a sight-disabled person to be accompanied by a guide dog.” In our darkest hours, love is the salve to all hurts, our truest salvation.

I hope that putting an inalienable right to direct, personal support from a loved one onto the the statute books will command wide, cross-party support. Please lobby your MP. Tell them that, when Covid restrictions are lifted, they must be lifted for everyone. These are our fellow citizens. Their imprisonment in perpetuity shames us.

When Mario Finotti made his bid to escape from the care home, he was saying that, at 91 years of age, he wasn’t merely a potential Covid statistic – he was a man who still had the right to choose. Stepping off that windowsill, he fell to his life.

Signor Finotti, Super Mario, we salute you.


Gawd! Try reading that on an iPhone............................ :lol:
flybymike, eltonioni liked this
#1895958
Flyin'Dutch' wrote:
eltonioni wrote:No? There's the difference. Needlessly and cruelly eliminating the most basic civil liberties of a sub group has once again been normalised in some places. History repeats itself all too often and people think they are on the right side of it at the time, only for their decedents to be aghast at what they did to others.


Matthew 7:3


That's a zero sum game in this context. Not terribly helpful.

Paultheparaglider wrote:
eltonioni wrote:Needlessly and cruelly eliminating the most basic civil liberties of a sub group has once again been normalised in some places. History repeats itself all too often and people think they are on the right side of it at the time, only for their decedents to be aghast at what they did to others.


A day before we arrive at the 77th anniversary of the freeing of the prisoners in Auschwitz, it might be worth just keeping a bit of perspective here. The loss of civil liberties around the world due to covid are hardly something that our descendants are likely to view in anything like the same manner. Yes, restrictions have been imposed, but from a stance of well intentioned paternalism.

It is a bit like having your cake and eating it (around, say, a cabinet table). There are bigger things to worry about.


I've spent the last hour or so watching the proceedings at the Bundestag. It's on DW now. It's chillingly relevant today in Continental Europe.

I've banged on about this so many times but I'll do it again because I still like my pathetic little amateur homily; There are partisans and collaborators. Almost everyone imagines that they would be a partisan in time of trouble but the horror is that most people turn into collaborators. They justify it too, even if it was "just following orders".

Back to today's Bundestag ceremony, if it appears on YouTube, Inge Auerbacher's talk (it's not a speech) from this morning is compelling. The timeline is long and rambling and includes being a 6 year old in 1938 excluded from the local school and having to catch a train to the Jewish school in Stuttgart as well as the people around her in the "model ghetto" camp being transported to Auschwitz in 1942. Small, seemingly insignificant steps became a holocaust. Some of our Flyer Forum pals will be personally touched by those events - I'm just a bystander trying to understand and frankly I can't.

The irony of her giving it in the Bundestag isn't lost on some of those speaking after her. I wonder if the message will sink in.
#1896000
Keveng wrote:
eltonioni wrote:
Flyin'Dutch' wrote:
The irony.............

I am sure you appreciate that your explanation brought out a laugh out loud moment.

:D :D


Did you have the laugh over a congenial cappuccino with your unvaccinated pals at the café?

No? There's the difference. Needlessly and cruelly eliminating the most basic civil liberties of a sub group has once again been normalised in some places. History repeats itself all too often and people think they are on the right side of it at the time, only for their decedents to be aghast at what they did to others.


@eltonioni

You do remember posting this then

"You edited this bit out > :P . I might not have been entirely serious on that occasion. :thumright:



The thing is, if instead of a pointless and ineffective lock down of the entire nation back in March last year we had quarantined the elderly and vulnerable we would not have had the death toll we've seen.

It might feel unfair to those groups watching everyone else going to the pub while they stay indoors waiting for the next free Waitrose delivery, but life is unfair sometimes, and not half as unfair as a needless death. The upside is that the rest of the population would have got on with something that resembled normality with little to no effect on the NHS or the nation's finances and our children wouldn't have suffered what will be life-changing damaged education and social development... and we haven't even begun reaping the rewards of virtually shutting the NHS for everything but Covid for a year.. "

so locking up a subset of the population was good enough for you then


You ignored the highlighted word.
#1896023
I've resisted adding to this thread, but there are good and bad points being made by all who have posted.

My personal feeling is that the slow erosion of personal freedoms is unacceptable . It is only the first step onto a slippery slope that can choose to take or not - once that first step is taken you are ON the slope & sliding away !

And a famous quote ( I cant recall who it was ) - "ll it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing "

The division of society in general is now seen as normal , its 'them' and 'us' becoming accepted . 'They' are wrong because they don't agree with 'us' . The excuse of 'I was following orders' is accepted now despite the morally questionable underlying 'reason' to do something ( like lock my uncle in a home with no visitors, my inability to see my partner in hospital due to a breakdown caused by lock down/ suicide, the sacking of 80k NHS workers as they are now 'a risk' - despite clapping for them last year - who choose not to have an injection that doesn't stop them getting or passing on a virus , they may or may not & probably do'nt have as they can do a test to know ) .

I support anyone who chooses to have an injection , however I also support those that choose NOT to have an injection . Our/ my choices do not need to be forced on anyone else . I wonder at what point ' encouragement' becomes 'coerced 'or being 'forced '?
flybymike, eltonioni, StratoTramp and 1 others liked this
#1896025
eltonioni wrote:
Keveng wrote:
eltonioni wrote:
Did you have the laugh over a congenial cappuccino with your unvaccinated pals at the café?

No? There's the difference. Needlessly and cruelly eliminating the most basic civil liberties of a sub group has once again been normalised in some places. History repeats itself all too often and people think they are on the right side of it at the time, only for their decedents to be aghast at what they did to others.


@eltonioni

You do remember posting this then

"You edited this bit out > :P . I might not have been entirely serious on that occasion. :thumright:



The thing is, if instead of a pointless and ineffective lock down of the entire nation back in March last year we had quarantined the elderly and vulnerable we would not have had the death toll we've seen.

It might feel unfair to those groups watching everyone else going to the pub while they stay indoors waiting for the next free Waitrose delivery, but life is unfair sometimes, and not half as unfair as a needless death. The upside is that the rest of the population would have got on with something that resembled normality with little to no effect on the NHS or the nation's finances and our children wouldn't have suffered what will be life-changing damaged education and social development... and we haven't even begun reaping the rewards of virtually shutting the NHS for everything but Covid for a year.. "

so locking up a subset of the population was good enough for you then


You ignored the highlighted word.

No i didn't , in your scenario i believe locking up the vulnerable, old and infirm etc is needless and collective responsibility was the way to go . 2 years down the line i still do !
#1896037
Keveng wrote:
eltonioni wrote:
Keveng wrote:
@eltonioni

You do remember posting this then

"You edited this bit out > :P . I might not have been entirely serious on that occasion. :thumright:



The thing is, if instead of a pointless and ineffective lock down of the entire nation back in March last year we had quarantined the elderly and vulnerable we would not have had the death toll we've seen.

It might feel unfair to those groups watching everyone else going to the pub while they stay indoors waiting for the next free Waitrose delivery, but life is unfair sometimes, and not half as unfair as a needless death. The upside is that the rest of the population would have got on with something that resembled normality with little to no effect on the NHS or the nation's finances and our children wouldn't have suffered what will be life-changing damaged education and social development... and we haven't even begun reaping the rewards of virtually shutting the NHS for everything but Covid for a year.. "

so locking up a subset of the population was good enough for you then


You ignored the highlighted word.

No i didn't , in your scenario i believe locking up the vulnerable, old and infirm etc is needless and collective responsibility was the way to go . 2 years down the line i still do !


I hate to be the one to break it to you but they were (many still are) 'locked up,' just like everyone else. Well, nearly everyone else apart from the half of the population that still had to go to work so that millions could shirk from home.

Let's be clear, again. I don't think I've ever said to "lock up" anyone. That's your poor choice of words, presumably to support your pish poor attack line. What I have said often is something like properly protect the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with what passes as normal life. I may have also suggested endless supplies from Waitrose and closed shop Bowls Club Swingers Section events, but perhaps that was, as you say, a little tongue in cheek. :wink:

Please accept this point, it's what I actually did and still do think, not what you might want to think I think. I don't need revising. :thumleft:



Edit
Talking of vulnerable, here's the talk I mentioned. I feel it's worth the time.
#1896249
eltonioni wrote:
kanga wrote:Today's "More or Less" explores (inter alia) the much argued (arguably misrepresented) issue of the stats behind 'Deaths with Covid' and 'Deaths from Covid'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0013r9w


Also a discussion on how placebos have become stronger.

Just saying.



On the died with / of Covid section, this MoL is another episode where they have set there own conclusion before doing the working out.


Some more figures related to the above. I am neither a statistician nor an epidemiologist, so do not presume to comment on those aspects, but the illustration of the spread of misinformation is worryingly unsurprising

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60145237

I see no evidence therein to support that last comment .. :?
#1896281
kanga wrote:
eltonioni wrote:
kanga wrote:Today's "More or Less" explores (inter alia) the much argued (arguably misrepresented) issue of the stats behind 'Deaths with Covid' and 'Deaths from Covid'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0013r9w


Also a discussion on how placebos have become stronger.

Just saying.



On the died with / of Covid section, this MoL is another episode where they have set there own conclusion before doing the working out.


Some more figures related to the above. I am neither a statistician nor an epidemiologist, so do not presume to comment on those aspects, but the illustration of the spread of misinformation is worryingly unsurprising

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60145237

I see no evidence therein to support that last comment .. :?


Hear what the man himself has to say about that BBC report. Then judge.



(Spoiler alert - the BBC lie)


@kanga nobody needs to be qualified (although very many are) to detect the confirmation bias in that and other More Or Less reports. Occasionally the mask really slips, such as the "Twitter geniuses" remark.


As with Brexit, choose your bias...
flybymike liked this
#1896306
eltonioni wrote:
Hear what the man himself has to say about that BBC report. Then judge.



My advice to other forumites is don't waste your time. I managed 4 minutes and gave up. You see his type on YouTube a lot. He takes 20 minutes to say what could be said in 2 or 3 minutes because he doesn't prepare, and he just rambles on. And on.

As someone who has spent a lifetime analysing and preparing numbers, my advice is go for the smell test first, and only bother with reliable sources.

There is a lot of poor analysis when it comes to covid. Some of this is down to the nature of designing consistent metrics, and the inherent issues that arise as a result. A good example is including in the death statistics the asymptomatic person who tested positive and then was run over by a bus on the way home. Some, like this, are really de minimis and so don't detract materially from the big picture. Some examples, such as trying to suggest that you should pay attention to the number who died of covid with absolutely no comorbidities falls into the interesting for a numbers nerd, but of no use whatsoever in presenting the big picture when the majority of deaths are in age categories where such comorbidities are the norm.

In short, use sources you trust. Do a smell test. And don't waste time on YouTube heroes who don't give you enough respect to spend a bit of time preparing in order not to waste your time.
Flyin'Dutch', kanga, nallen liked this
User avatar
By flybymike
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1896312
My advice to other forumites is to at least allow him the courtesy of more than four minutes of your time before dismissing him as a you tube hero.
You might conclude that it is possible that he was unfairly tarnished by the BBC who have accused him of disinformation based on untruthful allegations about what he actually said and which he systematically deconstructs for those prepared to listen long enough.
Doubtless the BBC who have not contacted him for comment even though they stated that they had done so, will be enthusiastic to accept his invitation for an interview so that they can hammer their point home.
It should make good prime time viewing along with all the rest of their “balanced” output.

Alas the BBC failed my own smell test based on their remorseless propaganda from day one.
100poundburger liked this
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