How Many Dead Bodies Haven't They Found Yet?

[MysticMeghan]

We hear all the time about people not wanting to "bother the NHS" because their symptoms are quite mild and we've all been told to wait it out at home and only spend 3 hours on hold to 111 if we are turning blue from lack of oxygen.

Seeing as we've all been self isolating for best part of 7 weeks and no-one's been round, it occurred to me that stories of European Care Homes full of dead bodies because all the staff are ill or have scarpered may not be the half of it. How many single people or entire families might have perished and no-one knows?

I know this sounds like a bad horror movie but not everyone has relatives skyping them every day to make sure they're ok.

28,446 may not be the half of it....

The guidance isn't set in stone. My sister lives alone and phoned 111 as she felt dizzy and was struggling for breath and scared. She explained she was alone and there was no one who could check on her and she got a lot of support

@slartibarti that’s really reassuring, as the thought of having to wait until I could hardly breathe to summon help when I’m on my own has been worrying me (not a lot, as I’m not really a worrier, I’ve just been curious about what would happen). It’s not as though I could ask a friend to pop round and sit with me!

For those of you saying I should be out and about volunteering in the community - I wish I had the time! I WFH for a Bank and we are very busy - I work a 60 hour week as it is. Also my daughter is seriously ill after an accident 7 weeks ago - discharged from hospital with a fractured spine and pelvis because they needed the bed and because lockdown was imminent and we wouldn't have been allowed to travel 70 miles to visit and she's only 17.

I live in a terrace and have lived here for 30 years. We are a mix of a few private and a lot of council. Lots of multi occupancy and very high turnover Neither DH nor myself have any extended family at all (distant cousins in London and Yorkshire who we haven't spoken to in 20 years doesn't really count) and our employers are in a different town to where we live and colleagues over 500 miles away. Often WFH. We know our next door neighbours but just to say hello to. DH and I have never worked locally and that is part of the problem. Our daughter didn't go to the local school but one on the other side of town for complicated medical and childcare reasons. So no real opportunity to get to know other Mums and Dads that live locally. We're quite happy with just getting on with our lives but if anything happened to us I doubt anyone would really notice. We never have family phoning or skying to check we are ok - we don't have any. Not complaining, it's just an observation.

Lots of people on here seem to assume that if you went missing someone in your extended family might notice. I have a sister 500 miles away that I haven't spoken to in years (her choice). If I died I doubt anyone would even know to tell her. I recently discovered that an aunt in Essex died 5 years ago (she used to send birthday money first to me, then my daughter) and no-one in her immediate family told ANYONE. I'd been sending birthday cards for years. Couldn't phone her as she was profoundly deaf. She wasn't the world's greatest correspondent and wasn't online. Eventually the care home where she had been living called me to say stop sending them but for data protection reasons they couldn't tell me why or give me anyone to contact. It took me a great deal of detective work to track down a phone number for her son (who I had never met) and I spoke to his wife who said she was very sorry but they'd been "too upset" to tell anyone. For 5 years.

I joined the "local" Covid Support group on FB when this started, but it covers an area of 371,000 people so is hardly really "local". Most of the requests for help come from people over an hours drive away, so although my intention was to try and help I would actually be in breach of lockdown regulations by trying to as the police would quite rightly ask why someone closer couldn't do it if they stopped me.

I know we should be looking out for our neighbours but it really is quite difficult. We don't go out very much and mainly in the car. The houses are built on the side of a hill with very high brick walls and hedges. And our house is below the level of the road so even cars driving past aren't visible from out lounge window. So if a neighbour 3 doors down didn't appear for 3 days I probably wouldn't even notice. To give you some idea, our neighbour opposite died of a heart attack some weeks ago and we only found out because DH was in the garden and the bloke next door who was friends with the guy told him through the fence. We didn't even see or hear the ambulance. Nobody in our street comes out to clap. My car parked in the street was badly damaged when someone reversed into it recently but because I was WFH and didn't use it for a week I only found out when I came out to go to Tesco. Similarly when our bin was set on fire. It's not the sort of place where someone knocks on your door unless they're trying to sell you something or evangelise and not much of that at the moment.

Not everyone has family or is part of a community or has anyone to look out for them. And although I would help anyone that I knew to be in need it's not always obvious. It's very difficult to knock on someone's door when you don't know their name and round here if you didn't have a concrete reason for doing so you'd get very short shrift. As a previous poster pointed out, you might think you are helping but that person could be a shift working NHS worker who has been at work for hours and just home trying to get some sleep.

I think the main problem is that there are probably thousands of people out there who don't have close family, don't have a job or social connections that give them a visible local presence and don't currently access any sort of help or benefits. They get on with their lives and keep themselves to themselves. They're not old, sick or vulnerable so they don't appear on any lists. And everything is fine up until he point that they have an accident or die suddenly. And everyone just thinks, "Oh! haven't seen so-and-so recently" and doesn't think anymore of it. There's a thread on MN where people are posting about how lockdown hasn't really changed their lives because they WFH and only go to Tesco once a week anyway. None of these people would be the sort of people you would normally look out for. They're not old or sick and fairly independent for the most part. Not part of a huge extended family. And if you wouldn't look out for them generally anyway, why would you even notice if they didn't appear? Not everyone sits in their window at 10am every morning. And not everyone is as compassionate as they say they are.

@MrsFezziwig, ‘You’re absolutely correct, but as I don’t regard myself as either elderly or vulnerable it’s a hard step to take psychologically!’
That’s so true! Hence my being able to say to mil, you’re 84 and live alone please message me daily, whereas as with younger prickly aunt I keep a more hands off but daily check in. Could you do it stealthily? By asking an elderly neighbour to let you know she’s up and hopefully she’d alert someone if you don’t respond?
nasty to think about.

You need to get out and volunteer in your community instead of creating threads like this

The two aren't mutually exclusive!

@slartibarti. What area is your sister in?

I think I get what you are saying. Anyone can end up on the margins due to lack of social connections, you don't have to be obviously vulnerable. I think when you find yourself socially isolated it's really hard to know where to start or how best to approach people, especially if it seems like they all have their own circles.

Let's just ramp up the fear bit now people are wanting to go back to work/school

That'll keep us in our place

You do understand that that is precisely what the behaviourists advising have been doing, don't you? Advising on how much or little of what kind of information to tell us at any one time so as to improve the chances we will comply with the requests that have been made of us!

Every government has been doing the same, as appropriate for their populace!

Fuck, they even TOLD us they were doing it, weeks ago!

That's not a secret, a conspiracy or even a bad thing, under the circumstances!

Vulnerable people who are registered with any organisation should be contacted I think..
I guess there will sadly be a few.

in the real world the help for vulnerable people is a shambles, with no contact being made, food supplies not turning up as promised, and minimal to non existent support being offered

Not on his own but a older bloke with MND had been waiting 5 weeks and still not got a food delivery. Was on the news over the weekend.

www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/11-kit-kats-11-tins-18099530

11 Kit Kats, 11 tins of beans and 10 bottles of cordial in government food package to area with thousands in need
MPs have written to criticise the 'disappointing' delivery

It’s exceptionally unlikely that many people are dying alone and not being found, and there aren’t any care homes that have just been left completely abandoned because the staff have all “scarpered.” That sheer hysteria-induced scaremongering.

Yes, there are unfortunately lots of people who are alone and vulnerable. But there are provisions in place for some (admittedly not all) vulnerable people. And the kind of person who is completely alone is unlikely to have the kind of social contact that would mean they’re likely to catch it (bearing in mind that you need sustained contact to become infected; you can’t catch it by walking past someone in a supermarket, unless they actively sneeze on you).

I’m much more worried about the mental health toll and potential of deaths from suicide, than floods of people who are so completely isolated they die without anyone noticing they’ve gone, yet with enough social contact to contract the disease in the first place.

It's been the same in other areas.
First coronavirus food parcels for most vulnerable leave a bad taste in the mouth
www.rochdale.gov.uk/news/Pages/first-coronavirus-food-parcels-leave-bad-taste.aspx

@BlueBrian Thanks for that link Its come in handy for the thread where the high death toll is being blamed on overweight people.

And the kind of person who is completely alone is unlikely to have the kind of social contact that would mean they’re likely to catch it

I am one such person and I caught covid-19 probably at work. Just because we are alone during shielding doesn’t mean that we are normally alone. Many/most of us usually lead the same sorts of lives as everyone else.

Non pandemic times......................hey elderly be careful of strangers

Pandemic times................hey elderly dont be silly It will all be fine to give a stranger access to your money and your controlled drugs.

See the problem?

Egghead68, I was talking about people who are totally isolated. Not people going out to work who have co-workers they see on a regular basis.

"Seeing as we've all been self isolating for best part of 7 weeks"
Lockdown was announced on the evening of 23rd March. That's 6 weeks.

I think the point about it being less obviously vulnerable people is spot on.

I am an academic and my closest "work friend" is a childfree woman in her 40s. Perfectly good health, super social, always on the go.

Only like many academics, she moved countries to get a permanent job so her family are abroad. Her work friends are across the UK and Europe as she knows them professionally and through research. She had just moved house before lockdown so doesn't really know neighbours. I can absolutely see how if she got ill it could be missed.

Another colleague and I have a pact to Zoom regularly with her but I can't do that every night.

I know its grim but there are probably children who have been killed in their home as well...

It's incredibly sad to think about, and I think that there will be tragic cases of people dying alone or with young children (especially if they dont have social connections in their immediate community)
I thought (hoped) that one of the few good things to come out of Covid was more community spirit and people volunteering and deliberately looking out for people
I have a couple of elderly relatives and both say their neighbours/friends are calling more than normal. I call them more often than normal as well as I think they will be lonely.

I know Smithty - there will have been some really dreadful situations that women and children in particular won't have been able to get away from.