It’s been a while since I wrote about COVID-19, this horrible virus that I think we will be living with for years to come. My reasoning is because it only started a couple of years ago, and we have had two additional strains since COVID-19 started, so why not more? I think it will be a long, long time before it disappears, if indeed ever.
But if you read my posts, you will know that I believe the one thing that has been lacking throughout the pandemic from the beginning is common sense. There was one Government rule stating that you couldn’t go and buy paint and brushes to decorate your kitchen; these photos were taken from the Government website when it all started. But you could buy tools to repair a damaged fence, does that make sense?.
My issue was that the Government wanted us to stay at home, but you couldn’t go out to buy DIY items that would keep you at home, yet you could go to the same shop to buy your tools and materials to repair a fence. And others didn’t make much sense. Like these people being able to buy a hot tub, but not paint and brushes. Paint and brushes to keep you inside, where they wanted you to be. Tools to repair fences and hot tubs which is outside, where they didn’t want you to go! And I appreciate these instructions may have changed, but that was then.
I would volunteer for the position of ‘Minister for Common Sense’ if it ever came up, I have lived my life with common sense and logic, and I’ve done okay, considering I left school with nothing. Some will say that had I done better at school, I may have done even better in life, but unless you’re some sort of rocket scientist, I fail to see where studying Algebra and Geometry actually gets you in life, and rocket science was never on the curriculum.
That aside, I hoped the silliness of the virus was all over, but it seems it isn’t! My work takes me into many sectors, including an occasional Care Home as it did today, and I’m afraid this is where I was proved wrong about common sense.
It all started when I was asked for proof of my second vaccination, so I showed the NHS pass that we can download to our phones, to show the evidence. But I was told ‘no’ they had to see my travel pass, and I said to them that’s what it was. They disagreed and said I needed to go onto my NHS app to show me what I needed to find, which getting more frustrated, I did.
I was then asked to download the pass for travelling abroad, I tried to explain that I hadn’t been outside the West Midlands in the last five weeks, but it fell on deaf ears, although when I asked why they needed the pass for travelling abroad, they told me it was to get specific information. Anyway, once the pass was downloaded and seen, one staff member read out the information for her colleague. The very same information that was available from the domestic travel pass I originally showed her! When I asked why I was told, ‘these are the rules we have to work to.’
The problem I have is when people can’t explain why the things they are doing are pretty stupid, which that obviously was, I end up getting more impatient and annoyed, and that was to continue. However, I guessed what was going to happen, and the trouble is that doesn’t help my impatience and annoyance.
I had been advised that I had to have proof that I had taken a lateral flow test that day and that I was negative, which I did the previous night at about nine o’clock. When they asked for proof, I told them what I had done, and shock horror that wasn’t good enough; it had to be the same day.
So already being annoyed, I asked ‘why.’ I took the test the previous night, stayed in
with only my wife in the house, got up and went to work this morning. Well, it had to be the same day as ‘that was the rules!’ So when I said that, had I done one this morning, and it was negative, would I have been okay, and they said I would.
So me being me and in my logical world, I asked what the difference was between taking a test at nine o’clock at night and only spending time with my wife, or taking one at seven in the morning and only spending time with my wife. Because in a realistic world, there is no difference – is there?
But those are the rules, at least they are for one home in the group, yet in another home in the same group, I wasn’t asked for my travel pass, and a negative lateral flow test from the previous night was more than acceptable – make sense so far. No, not in my world either, but it gets sillier.
If I want to go into these care homes, I am supposed to have a negative lateral flow test from that morning, even at home, but as in this morning, I can take the test, get negative proof and then go to see other customers after my home test and before I go to the care home. I can walk around their premises, without masks or any protection, come as close to people as those other people allow, sit in offices and have meetings. I can then saunter off to the care home and go straight in without further testing because I tested positive in the morning. It doesn’t get any worse – actually, it does, at least in my logical world, it does.
Another contractor who had to take a lateral flow test when they arrived at the home decided to go to the local shops whilst they waited for their test results, mixing with whoever, and because it was negative was allowed into the home when they came back from the shops!
I later found out that if you are a contractor wanting to work in a care home, say once a month, or even less frequently, say once every two or three months; you need to have had that negative lateral flow test that day. But if you are a relative wanting to visit a resident, you don’t!! Now I can only assume there are no limitations to how often you can visit a relative in care, so I’m now thinking I can go anywhere I want, mix with whoever, and get into a care home every day if I’m a visitor. If I’m a contractor visiting every two months or so, we must be so different in our ways of life that we need to have a lateral flow test. So you see why I don’t think the silly and stupid COVID rules change very much?
I have tagged a couple of care homes on Instagram, none of those tagged was the company involved, I am just trying to highlight the issues and silliness!
It’s the same in whatever we do, even the World Darts Championship from Alexandra Palace, one of my favourite sports and past times, I have even written about this in the past
But again, I ask why? Why is it that some players won’t even touch each other with a fist bump, never mind a traditional handshake before a game, yet others hug and cuddle after it’s all finished? Staff wear face coverings, and some fans do, some don’t. What common sense, what logic?
And even as I prepare this post and having had a quick glance at the papers, I see this headline. I get it, but why can’t I go to the pub, have a couple of beers and have Christmas with my family as we always have done. There are no restrictions; we are being ‘asked, not told.’ And based on that, some will look at the headline and wonder what is going on. But if we adopt common sense and logic, why can’t we do both?
I bet if I was to wander up the High Street tonight, the pubs will be rammed full as is traditional on the last weekend before Christmas, and so what is the difference between going out tonight in a crowded pub and doing it on Christmas day. The virus doesn’t go away overnight; being infected tonight means still being infected on Christmas day, and it is similar to the care home situation – it’s all a bit confusing, is it a bit silly?
But things will never be simple with COVID. I recently wrote about looking way back in time to dig the dirt on people, like Michael Vaughn and those historical tweets and messages (let he who is without sin cast the first stone, I say.) So now we are going back to the Christmas parties at Downing Street last year, and part of me asks why? But on this occasion, we are talking about our leaders, and if they did it, they are in the wrong, but to involve the Police – really?
Do I phone the Police to tell them my seventy-two-year-old neighbour had her family around when she shouldn’t have? What if we all want to phone the Police and inform them of illegal gatherings and parties that took place some twelve months ago – they couldn’t cope with the calls?
I have also said in the past that this Government has proved pretty inept at handling the whole pandemic, but then most will never have dealt with anything like this before. However, they have been pretty poor in the handling of the virus, and it showed again in their handling of these allegations, or facts, as some photos show.
Johnson should have had the decency to stand up, admit their failings, apologise and not treat us like idiots. If he had done this, then more people would possibly have respected this and accepted it and then moved on, as we should try to do when people do admit they got it wrong. Still, these are our leaders, and to be leaders, we have to lead from the front, and we have to set examples, not treat the country like fools, as Dominic Cummings also did. But they have paid the price in the recent North Shropshire By-Election, with the Lib Dems overturning a 23,000 majority. The public has spoken.
I’m not sure on this one, but part of me still thinks that we need to try to move on from this and not dwell on it, which in many respects goes against my own story, as I can’t forget my past, even if life enjoys reminding me.
But to finish with, I certainly didn’t agree with the BBC’s methods of getting the story across. Interviewing a woman who had lost her mother last year to COVID, whilst unable to visit her in hospital due to the pandemic, at the same time the parties were happening at No10. I totally understand the ladies grief and frustrations, calling for Johnson to resign, but I would still have one question for the BBC, and the lady prepared to sit in front of the TV cameras in tears? What should happen to my neighbour who had family round to her house, and at the same time as the Downing Street parties, and where do we stop?
It’s a sad story, there is no doubt, and what do we do, well Boris will do what he always does. It will be ignored, and in a week or two, there will be other big stories in the press and making headlines, and it will all be forgotten about, or at least that’s is what he hopes will happen. It is a tactic he adopts quite often.
But to finish with, I would ask this – why didn’t we sit up and take notice in 2005 because we were warned, but then even their own Government didn’t seem to react, not with the deaths the USA have had?
Thank you for reading, and stay safe.
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