As 2020 draws closer to an end and the Christmas dinner looms high on the horizon, give a thought to how we can make the year ahead better than the one we leave behind. Our leader, Boris, has jumped into the telephone box and changed into his superhero costume. “Hail Boris the saviour of Christmas”. The star of the east rises in the sky.
We pray this Christmas will be the only one ever to be marred by Covid or any other deadly disease. Eat, drink, be merry and celebrate the freedom of brexit whilst waving the new blue passport printed in France. A true boost for British business. A saviour is born, a new dawn beckons.
More importantly, as we plan the year ahead and the mass vaccination of the 68million residence of the UK. ‘Starting to get back to normal by Easter,’ says the man in number 10 as the Christmas tree lights sparkle in the background. The ‘candle of hope flickers’ says the man in charge of the Elf service. So that’s the UK with a plan then but of course that’s less than 1% of the world’s population and we still have to get through the Christmas turkey. The ‘world leading’ track and trace service gears up for business and cogs grind ever slowly towards the new normal.
In January, just a short few weeks from Easter, those in charge of the science and the medicine are predicting a massive upswing in the number of Covid cases. Five days of Christmas, a partridge in a pear tree and a full blow explosion of Covid cases. Well done Boris, the saviour of Christmas 2020. A health service already at full stretch in the middle of winter to be pushed hard by a demand for more critical care capacity and respiratory clinicians, in volumes never seen before.
Preparing for war we know that the casualties will be high and the injuries horrific, a shock to all who bear witness. The senseless loss of life and limb. The mental torment of PTSD. The families at home are stricken by loss. It’s what we expect and ask of those who serve our nation at the times of severe conflict. We thank them all, we see their loss, we share their grief and salute each and every one of them. They give their lives, their futures, to fight our causes. What greater sacrifice can we ask of anyone?
If only this was so with a respiratory disease pandemic. Ask anyone working in emergency medicine what frightens them most and the answer you get back is likely to be about people who just can’t breath. When they lay there exhausted, in distress and unaided by the best medical system in the civilised world. Nothing prepares you for the fear in someone’s eyes when medicine runs dry and the light ahead is a candle of hope flickering and faltering to extinction. Not everyone will get through this winter, but that’s not new. The fact that thousands more than usual will die before spring is the frightening fact. Do we really think that only old people or already ill people will succumb to this terrible disease?
During the coronavirus, SARS, outbreak in Toronto in 2003, the vast majority of people who died between the ages of 18 and 64 were health care workers, or visitors to the infected patients. Not theory, it’s written in journals and known by many who still have the scars of lost friends, colleagues and of course lung disease. Not very obvious, not very clear, no way of highlighting the sacrifice they made. The hero’s of Toronto that
nobody knows.
So cast all that aside and think of our five days of freedom and the cost we will pay. Granny’s don’t live forever but it should be longer than Christmas day. Blame the government, blame the disease. Blame the scientist, medics or the fella in the pub that gave you the disease. But when the candle goes out and the flickering stops, just think whose behaviour caused granny to drop. Eat, drink and be merry but just in case you
forget, those heroes we count on gave service in vain if for the sake of one day we feel nothing but shame.
