Clapping outside hospitals has got to stop

[Wired4sound]

A friend forwarded me this video -

www.facebook.com/barnsleychronicleonline/videos/158413535522368/

Far too many people all congregated together, some hugging and kissing. NHS staff outside in their uniforms and someone in their wisdom invited the local council and the local council housing team up to be clapped too!!!

Just WTAF!

🤦🏻‍♂️

@IWasThereToo bollocks - there's a child in the middle of that large group of people who are 'all clocking off' and the people distancing the other side of the road by the blue bins aren't in their doorways they are stood on the pavement so when the nurse crosses the road they are all stood ridiculously close to her and any other genuine pavement pedestrians - idiots.

Half the people aren't even clapping they're glued to their phones taking pictures and videos so they can show all their Facebook friends how involved they are

That's ridiculous, the Westminster Bridge video even more so, I'm gobsmacked at how people can think it's ok. That has to be the end of clapping for the NHS, it was supposed to be done out of your home windows!

I was amazed to see all of these this morning.

It's fine saying 'we need to get behind our NHS' and 'they work together every day so they don't need to socially distance'. But they need to get behind us and stop this ridiculous social gathering outside hospitals.

Workers are out of hospital in their uniforms which puts the members of the public in danger. Like the nurse prancing across the road in Poole and walking past all the people on the pavement who have been socially distancing all day.

Whether you're on a Covid-19 ward or not, surely you're in intimate contact with a patient as a medic? So how does that nurse, and all the others in the various videos going about today, know that none of her patients have Covid-19?

What's the point of people sewing pillowcases for Covid-19 ward medics to use as 'scrub bags' to take their uniform home in, if other hospital workers are going to pop out in their uniform when they know nothing about the patients they've been treating all day.

Totally ridiculous.

Someone dying in the hospital that very minute, loved ones crying and in turmoil - and a bunch of loons clapping outside

LondonJax attention-seekers and adulation-cravers in every job. NHS staff should be changing into their street clothes, not wearing their uniforms outside.

I think the clapping has morphed into something that will not be able to be controlled because some people seek glorification that 'they care more' and have to be able to visibly demonstrate that. If they couldn't, they wouldn't bloody do it. There's everything wrong with that and there's no excuse good enough.

I don't want to stay at home but I do, because that's the instruction with the excepted activities.

It’s crazy. What started out as a nice idea has morphed into a monster contorted with irony and self-indulgence.

I wonder how many people participating didn’t put it on their SM?

Hmm I wonder Arrietty!

So if i want to see my elderly mum who i havent seen for five weeks i just invite her to Westminster Bridge at 8pm on a Thursday. Grand

Its hard not to see a big underlying issue here. The guy who was had a go at for standing in his front garden and the guy who was threatened with pepper spray were both in poorer areas.

The local newspaper who posted the video on fb last night have obviously realised they’ve ballsed up and added the following this afternoon :

BREAKING: People taking part in the weekly ‘Clap For Carers’ event which honours NHS staff have been urged to remember social distancing guidelines - after an estimated 200 people descended on Barnsley Hospital last night.

Bob Kirton, chief operating officer and deputy chief executive of Barnsley Hospital, said: “The weekly Clap For Carers means an immense amount to our staff working on the frontline to support patients in our hospital.

“While we at Barnsley Hospital greatly appreciate the overwhelmingly positive support, we urge people to observe the essential social distancing measures in place and ensure this is practiced effectively on our hospital site.

“The fact that people want to come to Barnsley Hospital to show their support by clapping our staff is incredible but we must ask that for the continued safety of our staff and our patients, unless you are already at the hospital, please don’t attend the site to participate.

Barnsley Council and the Safer Neighbourhoods Teams haven’t commented as far as I can see.

Or he could have said - "stay at home, save the NHS, save lives!"
Just as we've been being told!! I go back to what I said earlier. Staff should clap fe their wards, the public from their doorsteps or windows, police from wherever they are at the time, ambulance staff the same and fire service from base (assuming they'd be a bit preoccupied to call if on a call!!).

& Cressida Dick videoed on Westminster Bridge last night. What an absolute joke

If it is just people who are working in the hospital that come out, I’d assume it would be OK - they aren’t going to be socially distancing from patients or staff in the hospital, so being less than 2m from each other outside shouldn’t be too much of an extra risk.

If people are travelling to hospitals, and then standing too close to other people, that would be stupid.

@ SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius

Not just people working in the hospital but police, journos and key workers from Barnsley Council and Barnsley Safer Neighbourhoods team!

Helena Areas around Westminster Bridge include large estates of social housing with a lot of deprivation. Barnsley's not known for particular affluence either. This isn't an income issue.

The mind boggles at the stupidity of groups in close proximity to each other clapping outside hospitals.

@JudyCoolibar
What do you think is opposite the hospital?

I have zero opinion on what is opposite any hospital. It makes no difference to the principle that people are supposed to be staying at home.

If it is just people who are working in the hospital that come out, I’d assume it would be OK - they aren’t going to be socially distancing from patients or staff in the hospital, so being less than 2m from each other outside shouldn’t be too much of an extra risk.

True, but firstly, they’re the ones being clapped for.... Previously it was only dictators who tended to join in applause for themselves!

Secondly, why come out and make a spectacle. That’s what has caused this absurd pantomime where, firstly, other emergency services turn up to “show their support” for the attendant media, which in turn has drawn a crowd of the public.

It’s a shame that this gesture of solidarity by the public has turned into this tawdry festival of mawkish virtue signalling.

Been saying this last few weeks. Same south east all the police lined up closely together, not following government advice, maybe the police think their uniform stops them catching it? There must be other jobs the police could be doing.
I've also got a issue with fireworks- stop spending money on fireworks for Thursday night clapping - use the money to donate to nhs instead.

IRL I sometimes feel like a cynical grump, but always glad to come on MN and find loads of people who think the same! Those videos outside the hospitals do feel a bit creepy; it seems astonishing that no-one senior at the police and fire stations said, "no, you can't take the trucks/cars out on a jolly; the optics might seem a bit hypocritical". Cressida Dick, I thought, looked a bit uncomfortable, although maybe I'm just projecting - but some people who were at these gatherings must have thought, "hold on, maybe this isn't such a good idea", but by then it was too late.

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius - they aren't all wearing PPE. What's the point in having PPE at all if the NHS staff, who are as or more likely to be infected as anyone else, can hang out 5 inches from each other?

No - that is a very good point, @MRex - I guess I was trying to find a justification where one may not exist.

Some people are just so desperate to do communal stuff.

The guy who was threatened with the pepper spray was person of colour

The guy told he couldnt stand in his OWN garden was on a housing estate. There are pockets of deprivation around that area of London but Westminster Bridge itself....isnt.

I am so glad other people feel the same way, it makes my skin crawl. It isn't the act itself, more the 'have to be seeing to be doing it' brigade and loss of common sense that goes with it.