My thoughts and reflections on COVID.

 

I remember the health minister, Matt Hancock, telling the House of Commons in January 2020, that Professor Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer for England, had downgraded the risk of people getting COVID in Britain from low to very low. Hancock also said that as usual Britain was always well prepared and well equipped to deal with an epidemic. As we now know, it was all complete bullshit.

By May 2020 we had a higher death rate from COVID than Italy and the staff working in the NHS, were complaining of a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE). One minute we were told that wearing a face mask was pointless and the next minute, face masks became compulsory.

At a time when the police were setting up road blocks to ask people where they were going and were flying drones to spy on fell and dog walkers, people were flying into Britain from all over the world without being put into quarantine or even being screened for COVID. Some of these people were arriving from COVID hotspots and walking straight onto the streets of Britain.

In March 2020, I remember being stopped by two police officers as I was walking home late at night. They wanted to know where I had been and where I was going. They made it clear to me that I wasn't under suspicion of anything but that I shouldn't be out walking, because Boris Johnson the prime minister, had ordered everybody to stop at home. They told me that I faced arrest for being outside walking and told me to go home. I told them that I wasn't aware of what Boris Johnson had said because I had been out all day.

We now know that Boris Johnson and his flunkies were deliberately flouting every law and regulation that they had introduced to control every aspect of our lives and the spread of COVID. There were regular piss ups in Downing Street along with birthday parties and Christmas quizzes. They even had a "bring your own bottle" piss up in the garden at Downing Street. Despite the widespread flouting of their own laws, Johnson told the House of Commons that he had been assured that COVID rules and regulations had been adhered to at all times. He was later found to have deliberately misled the House of Commons. Johnson then resigned as an MP to avoid being suspended for 90 days and having to fight a by-election.

Boris Johnson got COVID and was hospitalised. I got COVID in July 2021 and spent six days in an intensive care unit at my local hospital. At the time, I had not been vaccinated to prevent COVID and the hospital staff weren't happy about that. Before going to hospital, I had managed to get a GP to make a home visit. I told the GP that I was fatigued and felt tired and that on one occasion, I nearly fainted at a bus stop. I also told her that I was finding it hard to eat even though I felt hungry and that I hadn't the energy, to even to wash myself. She carried out tests and told me that she couldn't find anything wrong with me and that I didn't have the symptoms of COVID. I now know that I did have the symptoms of COVID even though she couldn't recognise it. I didn't feel particularly unwell and didn't have a raised temperature, persistent dry cough, or a sudden loss of taste and smell, but I knew that there was something wrong with me. Before she left, she told me to take a couple of paracetamols and to phone 111 if I felt worse.

It was a relative who later phoned the GP surgery to tell them I was still unwell. I had asked her if she could do some shopping for me. My cousin probably saved my life. My sister-in-law also came to my rescue and offered me help and assistance which was greatly appreciated. The GP said that he would call an ambulance. When the paramedics did arrive, it was 5.00 a.m. in the morning, and they told me that it had taken them twelve hours to get to me. They seemed to think that this was a subject of some amusement. I remember thinking to myself, I bet it didn't take twelve hours to get to that stupid bastard Boris Johnson. When they put the pulse oximeter on my finger, they told me that I was going to hospital straight away because my blood oxygen levels were down.

In the ambulance I was put on oxygen and taken to A&E. I didn't have to wait and was wheeled straight into the unit. They did tests and told me that I was being admitted to a ward because I had COVID. I finished up spending six days in a hospital ward with about twenty other people who all had COVID. I discovered that most of these had already been vaccinated for COVID but had still got it. Some of these patients were far younger than me and had been in a far worse condition. I discovered that one of the complications that can arise from COVID is blood clots, so I was given anticoagulant injections and put on steroids and anti-inflammatory drugs. When I was on that ward, a man appeared at the foot of my bed one day. He never introduced himself to me, but just said: "I can't guarantee that you're not going to get far worse." He then walked away and I never saw him again. Even though I was feeling much better, I thought that I had just encountered Grim Reaper. One member of staff, who worked on that COVID ward, told me that she'd had COVID three times. When I asked her what she thought about the way the government had dealt with the COVID pandemic, she told me that she thought that they didn't know what they were doing, and I think she was absolutely right.

I take my hat off to that lady and to the other members of staff who looked after us at Tameside Hospital. They put their own lives at risk by working on that ward. After being discharged from the hospital, I was given medication and told to isolate at home for ten days. During those ten days my sister-in-law brought food to my front door. I was later given a chest X-ray and given the all clear.

I've now been vaccinated five times against COVID and I am due for a sixth injection next month. I was fortunate to survive getting that laboratory-made Chinese disease, but some people weren't as lucky. One man told me recently that his brother had died of COVID simply because he contracted it from being in the company of people who had just returned from a holiday in Italy.

Since getting COVID, my GP surgery have never contacted me once to ask how I am doing. At the outset of the COVID pandemic in March 2020, they stopped having walk-in doctors' appointments and have never reinstated them. Today, it's almost impossible to get to see a doctor at that surgery because they're still reluctant to have face-to-face contact with patients. Hospital doctors and nurses have no choice in the matter. General Practice has almost become a sinecure. GPs are getting well paid for doing next to nothing.