We've been promised a new society by politicians for all my voting days and beyond, but Covid-19 has presented us with no option.
It has no slogan but it literally is change behaviour or people die. Every time I say that I hear Jim Carroll's song, re-titled as the Care home cull. What astonishes me is we haven't mandated contact and traceability in a care home.
I'll come onto Education,music, theatre and sport like football later, but our society is transforming.
The first thing in any crisis is recognising what the crisis is. If it is a big meteor, if it is a tsunami, you identify it and search through your well rehearsed plans, just as we're seeing in Germany. The Germans are so public spirited they will soon be helping out the rest of Europe as they get their own society working again. They remind me of the "fit your own mask before then fitting your child", advice on the plane.
I'm pro Europe and I'm hoping our Brexit stance wont stop the Germans helping us, although they'll probably push at easier doors. In a crisis people who want to help just need to be shown which tools to pick up or supply, they dont need a sit down meeting to discuss it.
Its clearly going to be trying times but the easiest way is to start at the end and work back. A lot of people make the mistake of taking 4 steps until they find they've just headed down a cul-de-sac.
In Education we want the educators to have educated the population needing it. From nursery to university. Quite simply the measuring systems of exams are up for examination. Continuous assessment started a long time ago and nowadays most employers want to know that a certificate of education means that the person is educated.
So when pupils and schools worry about this years highers and whether they'll get results that get them into University, while the clearing system tries to work out what to do, just say, "Hoi! stop ra bus, draw breath, save lives and what's the worst that might happen, you have a gap year, we use prelims or personal recommendation, statements and interviews." We've boxed ourselves in because we've undermined trust in our schooling system, turning them into exam factories, while our universities have slowly been turned into business selling degrees.
Covid-19 offers us the chance to give education back to the educators, the committed frontline people who want to teach and will be far better at doing it when we get behind them and support their efforts. Like many of the front line staff, who help people in our society, they are drawn to help because of their commitment to the cause, its certainly not the cash. So we need to find a way to help them help us. Here's an idea, teachers, please talk amongst yourselves and propose a plan.
Dont sit down with politicians, just put the plan together and tell the politicians, this is the plan. If it involves friday is home schooling day, if it says a national plan is to let every school decide locally, whatever it says, its your future and its our future, I've always found you'll know more than any politician. Politicians on the other hand hate coming up with a plan and its always given over to someone else to draw it up, so thats why you tell them just as the NHS is trying to do at the moment. Along with the Care workers, police, postal workers, firemen, and all the key staff.
With so few actually being exposed to Covid 19 during lockdown the sad fact is that it is the Care workers who are being left naked, but also being the unwitting carriers of the virus. The only people who are not allowed to Social Distance are those in the care community, NHS & Care Workers. The Care workers are being put in an impossible position as they travel from house to house or home to home, doing shifts often on minimum wage and zero hours contracts. They cant be shielded by being furloughed as they're needed to work. Once the virus is gone in 14 months time many will be sent to a detention centre to be repatriated by a home office ticking boxes. It'll be disgusting and it needs to be sorted now.
Whats frightening is that they are part of the controlled explosion of this biological bomb. Their job of care also involves slowly spreading the virus among the care community. They cant take 2 weeks off to self isolate if they feel symptoms coming on. Their bosses aren't always as keen about care as they are about costs and contract fulfilment. Unscrupulous care homes are routine reality shows as they are cheap to make and fairly plentiful. They exist, they're disgusting and they turn the stomach. This government far from shielding old people is quite simply complicit in an act of genocide. That might seem quite a bold statement but I believe it is true and the word I'd use applies to us all, we are all complicit. Its not just in the UK, in Spain, in the States, stories of care homes and bodies abandoned or hidden in makeshift morgues are only the surface. Throughout the world old people will have been quietly culled like cattle during foot and mouth.
I have asked myself many times about working in a care home after the first patient dies with a high temperature, coughing and other covid symptoms. Would I get man flu and not turn up for work or would I offer to do double shifts. IF I got ill doing double shifts would I cry off and sensibly self isolate or soldier on. If I was "stepping up to the plate" if that's my psyche, then I'd work through man flu considering it essential to help. Its an insidious position for the staff to be put in when they know and love the residents they care for.
Death rates from Covid-19 will never be accurately reported as in death, there is overlap. I'd like to see stats where people were alive if covid-19 hadn't appeared, not stats that say, covid 19 may have been the trigger but it was blah blah blah as when people tragically die there is often a multiple of ailments.
I know little about the regulation, the Care Inspectorate and control of care homes, I only know that having visited a few for my Mum 4 years ago, I saw that there was a different level of care. I didn't think there were homes that looked awful but I did see homes that were filled with people living their lives with carers who knew their residents and cared for their needs. A simple pre-requisite one would think but its also a very easy way to make money so its no suprise that many gangsters operate care homes. We chose a home for my Mum that was superb for her for 3 years. Care homes can be fantastic but we need to recognise the range of homes out there and the relative lack of regulation. Does anyone have a job to ensure all staff are checked healthy to work, or is the zero hours a clue as to whether or not you're obliged to work ill or not. Hmmm, let me think.
So, yes, the government are in complicit unless there's a procedure at every care home to at the bare minimum, for all staff to have their temperature taken. We've watched so many pictures involving people being tested coming out of tube stations etc.
This leads naturally into music festivals or football matches. Turning it on its head should we try and work out what is good about large crowds? I figure there's loads of opportunity to test people, like getting onto tubes or buses, surely we can take people's temperature and screen them. Crowd control is one of our strengths in the UK. We love a queue. Obviously those with a high temperature are in for a test, but that's where we hit our first cul-de-sac moment, we dont have these tests! We are looking at this rolling for 8 months.
So lets start at the end and work our way back. For Football that means we are writing off 2020/21 season and should just about be able to finis this season. European football is governed by UEFA and they are in crowd cuckoo land. Normally you'd say cloud cuckoo land but I couldn't resist it. They have television contracts and their raison-d'etre is to make money, protect the powerful brand at any cost, and that includes the tragic residents of Bergamo, who make me well up every time I think about how decimated their city has been through the virus, caused by one UEFA Champions league football match. Will we ever know what Cheltenham did for our country?
If we start at the end we need clarify whether the Euro's should just be abandoned or whether the leagues use June 2021. To do this we need to work out as a society what role entertainment to play going forward. This is from live music, theatre and sport to the cinematic versions watched in your home.
I cant describe the joy I felt in catching up with Patrik Fitzgerald and the 1980 documentary. There's so much content out there, and the technology directs you to it. Will we look back with hindsight and say that 2020 was when we finally saw the technology vision. I dont know but there is a time in the future when historians will say thats the date when homo sapien handed over the keys to society, or will it be the time when society staged a quiet revolution. Considering how badly the failed democracies of the UK and USA have done in choosing their leaders lately it seems technology has already taken over.
Anxiety levels in the UK have risen with social media often cited as the reason. The level of pressure to keep up means that the lack of hours in each day lead to collapse. So here's the deal, this period of lockdown has given many people the time to catch up and see 'keeping up' for what it is. People like me who take two days to write a wee blog post like this have no chance of competing in that dynamic high paced world, but enough, back to the entertainment industry.
As a Hibs supporter, who goes to the odd gig or play what is the end game, and what revolution will unfold.
I'll finish this later but we have to carry the spirit of past calamities into making our world better for the experience.
If the players cant take the stage to entertain then perhaps we need to find a new stage or take the whole thing on tour.
Get the teachers to ask the football clubs, the pop bands the RSC what they want to engage their school and university populations. They cant fill stadiums but perhaps we could have a marathon run at social distancing, perhaps we have everyone playing a tune as we set a world record for the longest marching band.
Hi Leanne Dempster, how about we try a midsummer social distancing performance of Sunshine on Leith, with everyone playing whatever instrument they want, accordion players every 20 people, singers every second person. Logistically a nightmare, but what a community spirit!
When I first heard it live I thought it was "you're an express train...", which was strange because I'd just got the bus up from Edinburgh which was a lot quicker than the train. The locals had heard it before and were all bouncing.
When I first heard it live I thought it was "you're an express train...", which was strange because I'd just got the bus up from Edinburgh which was a lot quicker than the train. The locals had heard it before and were all bouncing.
