Someone close to me was feeling unwell last Friday.
She went to see her GP.
After examination, the GP decided she was sick enough to be taken by ambulance to the hospital.
When the ambulance crew arrived, no Covid-19 test was carried out on her before taking her into the ambulance.
When she was taken to the A&E, she was given the PCR test, which requires up to three days wait for result.
Meanwhile, she was seen by doctors and other medical staff.
What if she was Covid-19 positive?
She would have transmitted it to some of the medics and others in the waiting area.
The Ambulance Crew Without PPE
This same weekend, another friend of mine who works at a care facility called the ambulance for one of the residents.
When they arrived, my friend was shocked the see them with only gloves no PPE.
The Implications
As the UK death toll reaches the grime milestone of one hundred thousand deaths, it would appear as if those deaths were inevitable.
At least that’s what those in charge of controlling the virus would like us believe.
Was hundred thousand death inevitable?
No.
The death toll is that high because of poor leadership and a catalogue of failures.
Chronology of Failures
Failure number one: failure to adequately prepare when the virus was ravaging Italy. We had enough time to prepare when the virus was still in Italy. The problem here is, we did nothing with the time.
Failure number two: colossal logistic failure. Failure to procure PPE and other critical gears.
Failure number three: failure to lockdown early.
Failure number four: failure to effectively communicate to the public. The government talks about social distancing.
But what is social distancing in practice?
Is it only standing apart from someone?
Social distancing does not only refer to physical distance, it also refers to actions after interaction with someone.
Example, buy something from the supermarket without sanitising it, you are not practicing social distancing.
When you receive your parcel and open it without sanitising it, you are not practicing social distancing.
When a paramedic crew attend to someone without PPE, they are not practicing social distancing.
The London Underground still operational is a massive gap between preaching social distancing and practicing it. Meaning, the government itself is enabling violation of social distancing guidelines.
Failure number five: failure to listen to expert advice. This is the mother of all failures. The recent example of that was loosening restrictions for Christmas.
Even though experts warned that loosening the restrictions for Christmas would have had catastrophic consequences in the first few months of the year, the government ignored their advice.
Now Mr. Johnson is crying crocodile tears and pretending to be sorry.
If he was that sorry, after the blunders of the first wave, he would have taken experts advice this time.
Failure number six: failure to control the border. Australia and New Zealand are democratic nations. Yet, they closed their borders and implemented strict quarantine regimes. The UK did not, making excuse that the UK is a democratic nation.
Failure number seven: failure to create compliance environment. I started the articles with stories of lack of good testing regime and failure of paramedics to wear PPE.
These are some of the activities that are causing the virus to spike.
The London Underground is still operational and congestion and omission charges are still operational preventing people from driving as oppose to taking pubic transport.
There can be no better place for spreading the virus than the London Underground.
Failure number eight: failure to stop the spread from the source. The last few weeks has seen certain areas of the UK particularly London crumble under the virus.
While other parts of the country on recovery mode.
At one point, there was literally no intensive care bed in London.
Well, no quite literally, because there were beds in Nightingale hospitals, but there were not enough trained ICU nurses and doctors in London.
Why couldn’t the government move medics from other parts of the country to assist their colleagues in London.
This continues to be the story of the pandemic.
Where one part of the country is buckling under the weight of the virus and other areas recovering.
Instead of medics moving from other parts to help control the virus in areas that are struggling to prevent spread, they wait until it spread from that area to other areas.
What’s the Future?
My only hope is that in the end, the virus eventually burns itself out soon, which is what tend to happen during pandemics.
Do I hold any hope Boris Johnson is going to change and begin to act like a leader?
I will not hold my breath on that.
Will rapid testing be introduced in hospitals or will paramedics begin to wear PPE?
I will not bet on that either.
As viruses spread, they keep mutating.
But after a while, they lose their potency and fizzles out naturally as they came.
For the sake of all of us, let’s hope and pray this virus fizzles out sooner rather than later.
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