Rant-19

The advert ends on the note: "look them in the eyes and tell them you're doing all you can to stop the spread of Covid-19"

WHY??? The vast majority of people who contract Covid-19 do not get seriously ill. Indeed, at least a third never develop any symptoms at all. Yet all are obliged - by law and by force and by threat and by fine - to suffer for a proportionally small minority. And now they add emotional blackmail.

Let's have them, those who are seriously ill, those who have lost loved ones, LOOK THE REST OF THE POPULATION IN THE EYES and say I don't give a fuck for your life, your death, your mental health, your education, your future. Because that's what it boils down to. Sure, if you get covid or lose someone to it that SUCKS but so does cancer or stroke or heart disease or cot death or suicide or any disease under the sun.

Babies are suffering abnormal development and non-existent socialisation. This is the largest involuntary social experiment of all time and may well have lifelong negative consequences. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronavirus-babies-toddlers-education-development-school-playgrounds-b1042852.html

Children are losing out on their educations. Disruption in the early years we have known for decades is immensely harmful but we also have kids getting 'results' for exams not sat! IF my daughter graduates this summer it will be from having HALF her time at university stripped away. £9000 per year student debt for NO support, NO services, NO library, NO facilities and precious little by way of education. https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1390586/coronavirus-news-university-students-fees-online-learning Will her degree even be respected by employers who'll know she didn't attend lectures?!

We are facing a mental health crisis of unparalleled proportions. From the obvious stresses of those on the 'frontlines' https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/31/covid-stress-driving-hundreds-of-childcare-workers-to-quit-profession to the parents who're trying to work full-time from home while trying to teach their kids full time; or people like me who are caring for a loved one with no support and no respite. We're told to 'Protect the NHS' but the NHS has an appalling track record for mental health support. I told my GP I was suicidal; he replied "I don't care", it was SIX YEARS between my kid's suicide and the eventual referral to CAHMS. There'll be multi-generational depression, PTSD, social anxiety, eating disorders and substance abuse. TBH my family already had all of this BEFORE so you can only imagine what a mess we'll be afterwards. Then there's postnatal depression https://www.itv.com/news/2020-12-18/how-covid-restrictions-are-fuelling-a-postnatal-depression-crisis putting mother & baby's lives at risk. This is not a society but a sham; we are not supporting each other, we're cowering in fear and leaving the most vulnerable exposed.

Businesses are going belly-up at an alarming rate https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/0/job-losses-uk-coronavirus-covid/ the future is a terrifying prospect of unemployment, crushing national debt, devastating poverty, and empty high-streets. Y'all can argue that you can't put a price on people's lives but POVERTY KILLS.

People are suffering and dying of covid alone which is horrific and inhumane https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-55725812 but what of the (so far) hundreds of thousands of people who're suffering and dying alone of other causes or the (so far) tens of thousands of people whose cancer diagnoses have been delayed or missed entirely https://www.ajmc.com/view/diagnostic-delays-from-covid19-may-increase-cancerrelated-deaths-uk-studies-say.

Death rites are vitally important for the grieving process but we're severely limiting this crucial rite of passage from denying people contact with their loved ones to preventing funeral attendance. When my cousin Allister was dying of brain cancer his parents did a mercy dash to his bedside; his funeral was attended by hundreds. It was still devastating, especially for his parents, burying a second son in a year and a half, but seeing him one last time, seeing the church at standing-room only must've been some small comfort. To think of people like them being denied that is agonising.

"During the national lockdown, no more than 6 people can attend commemorative events such as stone setting ceremonies, the scattering of ashes or a wake." - www.gov.uk

Six people isn't even the immediate family in many instances!

Telling parents they can't even support each other at the side of their premature and critically ill baby is one of the most horrific, inexcusable things I can imagine https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-55840222 unless it's not being able to register and grieve a baby's loss https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-52663205. Or perhaps this https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/coronavirus-heartbreak-teenagers-funeral-limited-21741773 to lose a child after a life-long illness; having anticipated a celebration of her life as a means for the parents to cope with her loss only to have to settle for near enough nothing. It's beyond cruel.

Look a child in the eyes and tell them their education and future doesn't matter.

Look a stressed out and desperate single mother in the eyes and tell her that her isolation and trauma don't matter. Say it again over the grave of the baby she smothered when it all got too much.

Look a man who's gone bankrupt in the eyes and tell him that losing his business, his home, his relationship and his self-respect to the lockdowns isn't as important as a stranger's health. Look his widow in the eyes after he dies of suicide and say it again.

Look an old woman in the eyes and tell her she can't say goodbye to her husband at the end of her life. Tell her she can't see the children and grandchildren she now hasn't seen in a YEAR. Tell those children that they can't offer their father comfort at her funeral.

If you can do any one of those things you're a truly horrible person. But we're all sitting in our homes, protecting our own miserable little lives and allowing this to happen. History is not going to judge us kindly. The moment I knew we were beyond salvation was when the churches locked their doors. The faithful ministering to the sick and dying during times of plague is inspiring; this is the opposite. We have withdrawn kindness under the false guise of protecting others.

One person's life or death is not more important than another's; the many should not be sacrificed for the few.

Humans are mortal; we're all going to die. Diseases are normal and natural, especially one like this that kills the elderly and the chronically ill - the reason the 1918 flu pandemic was so horrifying was that it killed the young and otherwise healthy. Yet in 2009 when the Swine Flu pandemic killed children and pregnant women NOTHING closed, nothing changed. My kid had it - she wasn't tested or seen by a doctor; her school didn't close or even do a deep clean. She survived, 392 others didn't... but at the time of the first lockdown only 400 or so people had died in the UK. How come nothing was done on the back of nearly 400 YOUNG deaths when the entire country was shut for just over 400 primarily OLD people?! Sure, a lot more have died now but thousands die in every seasonal flu outbreak but we go on as usual. Our population is aged and unhealthy, people have been dying at proportionally slower rates for decades. The population crisis has been under discussion for years - we NEED a pandemic to redress the balance and, for the survival of the species, this isn't even the tip of the iceberg.

In 1900 the world population was approx. 1.6 billion; now it's nearly 7.8 billion and that's with two World Wars (WWI 15-22,000,000 dead; WWII 20-85,000,000 dead), the 1918 pandemic 17-100,000,000 dead), HIV/AIDS (32,700,000 dead), and the advent of birth control! More than quadrupled in 120 years with HUGE losses. Covid's currently at 2,230,000. The death toll, taken alone or in proportion to population, just doesn't warrant the devastation the INTERVENTIONS are wreaking.

I'm not afraid of covid; of dying myself or losing loved ones to it. I'm afraid of surviving this hell and trying to rebuild. People dying is sad but IMHO people who wrap themselves in cotton wool and leave the rest of 'society' to rot aren't worth saving.

Unpopular Opinion Piece

So...here in the UK the Charlie Gard case has been all over the media for ages and now, following his death, I feel it's time to express my thoughts.

And as the title suggests...this is not going to flow along the same lines as the popular opinions on the subject. If you are easily offended I suggest you click away.

Brief(ish) background to the story for non UK / living-under-a-rock type peeps:
Charlie Gard was born on 4th August 2016 and died on 28th July 2017 - his life support was finally switched off after a number of legal battles.
He was hospitalised from the age of two months. Initially admitted for breathing difficulties it turned out he had Mitochondrial DNA Depletion Syndrome which was considered, in his case, to be terminal.
Charlie was unable to move, breathe, open his eyes, cry (so there could be no consensus on whether he was in pain) and so forth.
The world renowned Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) in London where he was being treated believed he should receive only palliative care and be allowed to die; his parents (Connie Yates and Chris Gard) not entirely unreasonably wanted to take him to the US for experimental nucleoiside therapy.
A number of hearings were held; ethics committee, High Court, Court of Appeal, European Court of Human Rights...all agreed with GOSH. Eventually Charlie was allowed to die, aged 11 months and 24 days.

Disclaimer: I have based my opinions on my personal ethics and philosophy and information on the case available in the public arena; I have no medical expertise.

So...

My take on it is that Connie and Chris never had Charlie's interests at heart. I have little faith in the medical profession but despite every damn expert telling them, telling the courts that their son had no hope of life they believed blindly in a 'cure'.

THERE WAS NEVER A CURE. The EXPERIMENTAL nucleoside therapy offered at best (speculatively, as it had never been tried on a child so severely affected) a 4-10% improvement in muscle tone. He would still have been utterly immobile, non-verbal and requiring mechanical ventilation for life (life meaning probable death within early childhood anyway). Connie & Chris were clinging to a dream of Charlie being a normal healthy child and at every stage they seemed to fail to recognise the gravity of his situation.

Repeatedly they stated that if Charlie was suffering they would stop fighting for him...how could they know??? Of course he seemed peaceful. He couldn't move. He couldn't cry. If severely brain damaged (as all medical testimony asserts) it's possible even his blood pressure wouldn't spike to indicate distress. No parent likes to hear their child cry but to have my child unable to express fear, suffering, pain...NO. And yes, if you haven't read my other posts I am a mother. I would definitely bury a child rather than endure them suffering that.

All the expert opinions were that Charlie had suffered catastrophic brain damage from seizures; seizures were nigh on impossible to detect after he became immobile. In their final front-of-court statement Chris Gard said: "we now know had Charlie been given the treatment sooner, he would have had the potential to be a normal, healthy little boy" (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/charlie-gards-father-chris-delivers-heartrending-statement-outside-court_uk_5976159ee4b0e79ec19ad93d) This is fundamentally untrue. The best case scenario for Charlie was paralysed, ventalated, entirely dependent. The same statement said: "far from showing catastrophic, structural brain damage, Dr Hirano and other experts say his brain scans and EEGs were those of a relatively normal child of his age" ...if true* that is terrible. Charlie's life would have been effectively locked-in syndrome; an intelligent conscious mind trapped in an unresponsive body. No sane parent could ever want that for their child.
*There is a definite question as to whether this is true as no statement to that effect was made by ANY medical professional / expert at ANY point. We can only take this as the opinion of his parents. Every professional / expert opinion preceding was that catastrophic brain damage had already occurred.

Connie and Chris' final legal fight was to allow Charlie to die at home...which imho only confirms their insanity. People on life support simply do not die at home. At a time when the NHS is considered to be stretched to breaking point they wanted an incredible amount of money to be spent on pandering to their wishes after incredible amounts of money had already been wasted on court cases and futile care...I'm afraid I don't have a lot of sympathy. Dying in hospital, where he had spent most of his short life, or hospice made little difference. To die at hope was purely for the parents' 'need' with no consideration of the cost, either as financial or potential distress to their son.

Thankfully the courts saw sense and poor Charlie is finally at rest. My heart bleeds for what he endured.