Impact on daily life

Impact   26^th October
Major study reported by the Sunday Times found that the Government health advisers had issued guidelines to the NHS to make less priority for older people in going to hospital with Covid symptoms.  Also when they were in hospital many were refused to go into the Intensive Care Unit.  The original reason was that the hospitals would be overwhelmed by the numbers of older people and that perhaps they could not be saved anyway, if they had other health problems.  The report says that many older people then died at home or in care homes, without the specialist treatment.  The chances of recovery when people went into Intensive Care was high – nearly 90%.  If the older person did not get this treatment, their chances of surviving were less.  Officials say that the system was stopped when there was spare capacity in intensive care.  Many families are upset that their parents and partners did not survive.  The NHS denies that people were not given treatment.
Tier 3 areas have asked for an extra week of school holidays to help control the virus.  But the Government refused.  Boris wants to keep schools open … even though at least half of schools have had to send home groups of children because of virus cases in the school.
Some supermarkets report that they are making smaller puddings, and cracker packs because the big family gatherings which we usually have will not happen this year because of Covid restrictions.  They are calling it “Minimas” instead of Christmas.  At the same time, they are predicting that the sale of Christmas tress will increase because people cannot get away on holiday for Christmas.