Sorry, but for me this is the opposite from heartwarming. It makes me feel more hopeless then ever

[JKRowlingIsMyQueen]

I'm referring to what's going on in this photo. We know the vast majority of young and healthy people are unaffected by the virus and that most of deaths were old people in care homes.

So with all these lockdowns, restrictions and ruining the economy we are prolonging their life, right? Only for them to spend the end of their life alone with no in person contact with their family and friends.

Elderly people should have a choice whether they want to hang out in the same room with their own spouse for gods sake. This is elder abuse imo.

Now drag me for being "selfish" all you want but this is not okay.

My grandad had to choose in March between being essentially locked up and freedom but potentially never seeing his wife again, he chose to spend his savings on a bed in her home but he can't see family

Missing the point, but I absolutely hate how acceptable it seemingly is now to photograph random strangers going about their lives and share those photos around the internet. Maybe this man didn't want such an intimate moment made public for discussion.

Totally agree it is elder abuse.

We should all write to our mps about the nominated keyworker thing - it absolutely seems like the most sensible option.

My mum is allowed one 20 minute visit per week - outside - and that’s it. She has dementia but is otherwise reasonably healthy and feels that she is a prisoner. She has not been allowed out of the home for 8 months now. I asked if I could take her for a drive, after having sanitised my car but wasn’t allowed to. There is a point when I wonder for whose benefit this being so isolated actually is.....

Thanks for sharing that image op. I agree and find it distressing not heart warming. That poor man and his wife how dare the government decide they can’t hold each other and be together. What a cruel cruel thing to be doing to our elderly and public in general. It’s a basic human requirement to want to touch and be near our loved ones and as we live in a democracy and not a dictatorship I’m getting crosser by the day with their stance on this. Boris et al if any of you or your colleagues are reading this look at that image and hang your head in shame!

If someone in the next room wants to be sheilded then how could a care home justify allowing visitors and going against someone else's choice? Also they will be many people who have dementia but no family so how could we know their choice when it comes to the creation of an increased risk? How would we know they want to remain in that place? It's a horrible situation and no easy answer to it.

@loutypips

What about the elderly's right to life? Shouldn't they be protected at all costs rather than put at risk of a premature and possibly painful death? Or, do you want to kill off all the old people?

What about the elderlys right to make their own choice where possible?

MIL wanted to die for years and wouldn't have wanted protecting at all costs. Dying of covid would have been preferable to being bedridden but knowing what was going on around her and never seeing her family.

@JKRowlingIsMyQueen

I'm referring to what's going on in this photo. We know the vast majority of young and healthy people are unaffected by the virus and that most of deaths were old people in care homes.

So with all these lockdowns, restrictions and ruining the economy we are prolonging their life, right? Only for them to spend the end of their life alone with no in person contact with their family and friends.

Elderly people should have a choice whether they want to hang out in the same room with their own spouse for gods sake. This is elder abuse imo.

Now drag me for being "selfish" all you want but this is not okay.

Young and healthy people are unaffected??? How is being unable to work for six months (so far) unaffected?

It will also be the young who suffer the most from the long-term, i.e. beyond the middle of next week, economic devastation of unchecked Covid.

We all know that the countries who took effective containment measures are seeing healthier economies than us.

As for elder abuse. Yes, I'd say forcing care homes to kill residents and staff to take infected patients could be seen as a form of abuse. To both care home residents and the young staff members - who as we know represent a fairly large proportion of the deaths. There's the trauma too that staff and residents have suffered.

Btw, lots of care home residents aren't elderly. Many are young disabled people.

@PinkSparklyPussyCat
Yes we should have a Dignitas option available here in the UK.

That's a painless and controlled death. The complete opposite to Covid. A Dignitas death also doesn't kill anyone else, i.e. other care home residents, staff, or visitors.

I totally agree and feel grateful my 99 year
Old
Grandma died last year. She was 100% there marbles wise and this would have devastated her.

[quote SheepandCow]@PinkSparklyPussyCat
Yes we should have a Dignitas option available here in the UK.

That's a painless and controlled death. The complete opposite to Covid. A Dignitas death also doesn't kill anyone else, i.e. other care home residents, staff, or visitors.[/quote]
I completely agree. Obviously MIL wouldn't have wanted covid but to her it would have been the way out of just existing, nearly blind and deaf and confined to bed waiting to be changed and turned. There really should be another option.

DH is in a hospice in a lockdown area and they are allowing visitors, he'd been in hospital for the previous 8 or 9 weeks and I was allowed to visit every day - granted I didn't see another visitor almost the entire time he was there (one of the largest acute hospitals in the country).

I don't really know why the rules don't apply to me - I've never asked out of fear of rocking the boat - but my heart breaks for the other patients who spend all day staring at the walls. Video calls are no substitute for the reassuring touch of another human.

DH was extremely vulnerable, the highest category, suppose he still is (not that it matters now). He hates that the last months of his life have been spent alone, not seeing family or friends. So many people he will never get to say goodbye to. I asked him what he thought of lockdown and he thinks it was a huge overreaction. He would have happily risked dying of Covid if it meant everyone got to see loved ones.

Surely a better way would be using testing to allow proper visits with at least one family member? I'm so frustrated at how disorganised and haphazard the responses to the pandemic have been in the UK. It really doesn't have to be a choice between misery and a life cut short.

Agree @SnuggyBuggy i am very glad all my grandparents missed this. Heartbreaking.

Covid got into another wing of my mum's home and killed a quarter of the residents.

Sorry but Heartless though it sounds I don't want visitors traipsing in and out bringing a deadly virus. I want to see my mum now as much as anyone. But opening up just sounds too risky.

And in relation to my own risk I'm very relaxed. Stick to the rules but don't stress at all. But that's where my risk is less than 1%, likely much less. For my mum it's too high.

It’s awful my FIL is dying of cancer, he’s probably got 2-5 years left and I just keep thinking after the fabulous life he’s had it’s so sad that this is the end of it, not being able to see family and friends or do his usual hobby’s in the same way

I bet in Australia and New Zealand people can (or soon will visit care home residents.

Short-term effective measures to contain Covid is far better than longer-term dragged out shit.

I agree. suppressing Covid seems to be the excuse for everything these days. Seriously - how can this be better for anyone?

I 100% agree OP

@IwishIwasyoda

I agree. suppressing Covid seems to be the excuse for everything these days. Seriously - how can this be better for anyone?

Why suppress Covid? Erm, well for a start so that people can visit care home residents.

That and saving the (long-term) economy and ensuring we can all access routine (and emergency) hospital treatment - because beds are free and staff not off sick.

@LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett

Yes, this is a sad photo. Of course it is.

But my MIL is in a care home. Covid ripped through care homes in the spring. Once it's in a home, you can't contain the infection unless you isolate everyone and don't have any carers actually, you know, caring for them.

My MILs care home is doing absolutely the right things to keep people safe. If your desire to see your loved ones trumps that, then take them out of the care home and take them back to yours.

^^ This 100%. It’s all very well to say you should be allowed to visit, as you know that your relative would rather you keep visiting and take the risk of catching Covid, but what about all the other residents? Maybe they want to live! I nursed a sick and disabled elderly gentleman, who asked me to be his witness, when he said to the doctor that he wanted to be kept alive at all cost, no matter what! He went into a care home and is still there. He made sure that the care home knew his feelings when he went in! Him, and others like him, would rather have no visitors, than risk catching Covid and die! That is their right. If other residents don’t feel like that, and their relatives feel so strongly about it, maybe they should take their loved one home and look after them there.

Does anyone now what sort of safeguarding arrangements are in place? Pre Covid, most homes allowed open visiting at any time not least as part of safeguarding arrangements against abuse. The current situation must be making life a whole lot easier for abusers.

@Ceto The Care Quality Commission has suspended its regular inspections, but will still respond to complaints etc. However, there'll be rather less of these, given there are so few visits. So, not good.

Many care home residents died of dehydration rather than covid: www.spectator.co.uk/article/dying-of-neglect-the-other-covid-care-home-scandal

They became so hopeless and disoriented that they just stopped drinking and of course without people who loved them around, there was no one to notice the change in them or fight for them, or encourage them not to give up. So they died of loneliness and despair, not covid.

How is that a positive thing? It boggles me that people genuinely think that denying vulnerable people human contact is a positive thing something done 'for their own good.' It's like there's some sort of weird zombie-like tunnel vision going on where people can only see one thing - covid - and everything else just becomes bizarrely invisible.

A lonely, desperate death brought about by depression and dehydration is not better than dying from covid. Some sort of logic and common sense has to be applied - for many older people seeing friends and family is very much worth the risk of infection, especially as many of them will survive even if they do get infected.

The stupidest thing of all is that eventually care homes will have to relax their restrictions as they can't keep people imprisoned indefinitely. Covid will still be going around (as it will be forever more) so having suffered months and months of isolation the risk will still be there, which raises the question as to what the actual point of it was?