Having been told on several occasions that as I’m clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) to the Covid virus, I must wear a face mask whenever I have to mingle with strangers. For example, when shopping or going to the hospital. On these occasions I often get funny looks as I’m usually the only one wearing a mask, and on a couple of occasions have even been asked why I’m wearing one!
The consensus seems to be that the Covid pandemic is over and that we can go back to “being normal”, despite several friends and acquaintances of mine recently testing positive. Even at the hospital, the notices about always wearing a mask etc., when attending for an appointment have all been taken down. There are some nursing staff who do wear a mask, but the ones I saw the other day were wearing them under their chin!
I got chatting to one of the medical team and asked, as a CEV patient, why weren’t they wearing a mask when near me?
“Oh, we don’t have to worry about that anymore” was her breezy response.
I then asked if they were still taking weekly lateral flow tests?
“Er … well, I don’t and I’m not sure about my colleagues.” She said.
She clearly didn’t want me to continue this conversation so excused herself and walked off. I then saw her in a huddle with two other colleagues, one of whom looked across at me, then guiltily looking away. I could almost see them getting the ‘troublesome patient’ label ready for me.
Whilst waiting for my turn to see the consultant I took a quick look at my smart phone to see if there were any guidelines that still applied to hospitals and the continuing Covid situation. It seems that when the government ran its infamous Cygnus exercise (war gaming what their response should be if the country was hit by a pandemic) they failed to consider people who might be particularly vulnerable during such a scenario. The government and NHS eventually picked up on this political hot potato when Covid hit, but only after returning a lot of infected CEV patients back to care homes and nursing establishments. And we all know what happened then!
The ruling now seems to be that CEV people should take personal responsibility for protecting themselves against catching Covid, although all four nations of the UK have issued different public health guidance in different ways and at different points in time. One thing is consistent though, Covid is still the main cause of death, especially among older and disabled people.
The government seem particularly wary now about allowing this issue to resurface, especially as they could soon be facing a general election. And this is despite a recent poll showing that the support group Clinically Vulnerable Families found that 69% of CEV and CV people had cancelled medical appointments due to concerns over the lack of Covid precautions; 80% said that this was having an impact on their physical health.
You would have thought that the government had learned its lesson with hundreds of thousands of people dying since the emergence of Covid back in January 2020 … But I forgot, those in power just regard us all as acceptable collateral damage and just don’t give a toss!
Description: An Asian doctor is standing in front of a wheelchair user who is wearing a face mask. He is saying: “You do realise that by wearing a mask people will think we’ve not got Covid under control!”
Crippen Cartoons 