Article by paramedic in the Guardian

[mrssmiling]

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/06/covid-crisis-paramedics-nhs-overstretched

it’s about a failure of personal responsibility and the effects that individual actions can have at a communal, societal level. Every time someone socialises outside their household, or visits a relative, or has a friend round, it’s as if they’re drilling a hole in the dam. Just a small hole: what difference could one visit make? But if enough people drill enough holes, what you’re left with is not a dam, but a colander – and a health service that simply cannot cope

^ This should be shouted from the rooftops

Absolutely. Please share. With a huge thank you to Jake, and all paramedics and NHS staff.

@trulydelicious

it’s about a failure of personal responsibility and the effects that individual actions can have at a communal, societal level. Every time someone socialises outside their household, or visits a relative, or has a friend round, it’s as if they’re drilling a hole in the dam. Just a small hole: what difference could one visit make? But if enough people drill enough holes, what you’re left with is not a dam, but a colander – and a health service that simply cannot cope

^ This should be shouted from the rooftops

I completely agree with this, and I have found two things shocking and depressing this year, the lack of social responsibility from so many, and the horrible attitudes towards elderly people or those living with health issues.

"I’d settle for a return to the sense of apprehension that characterised the early stages of the first lockdown, and the helpful constraint it had on people’s behaviour. I never expected to feel nostalgic about those strange days, but how relieved I’d be to return to their empty streets now."

This is key. There were high levels of societal responsibility and compliance last spring SirVixofVixHall tbf. That's changed considerably for various reasons.

I agree about the appalling attitudes towards older people and how easily those with 'underlying conditions' can be written off in the collective mind.

Dominic Cummings had a big impact on this. He broke the collective responsibility. People saw he made individual choices rather than sacrifices and it made them feel like mugs for putting themselves out.

@Ohbabybab

Dominic Cummings had a big impact on this. He broke the collective responsibility. People saw he made individual choices rather than sacrifices and it made them feel like mugs for putting themselves out.

Almost everyone who is a parent has said something along the lines of “and if Alice put her hand in the fire / jumped off a cliff would you copy that too?”.

D.C. was outrageous in what he did but it is no excuse for the lack of intelligence and integrity in copying him.

I’m not saying they are right. I’ve stuck to the rules and some. But when people saw a senior person unprepared to make an individual sacrifice for the greater good it opened the flood gates to others thinking they could do the same.
There were many, many people in the first lockdown that made huge sacrifices and he made a mockery of that. If there had been consequences for his actions that would have been different.

People have had enough. Until recently people were flying abroad for holidays for gods sake. Bringing in mutations that might be vaccine resistant. Football teams holidaying to Dubai.

People perceive a lot of unfairness and they are weary. Their kids are weary

I don’t blame them to be honest.

Almost everyone who is a parent has said something along the lines of “and if Alice put her hand in the fire / jumped off a cliff would you copy that too?”.

D.C. was outrageous in what he did but it is no excuse for the lack of intelligence and integrity in copying him.

I was just about to post the very same thing. My mother's saying was "if x stuck their arse in the fire would you do the same?" DC doing as he pleased is just a convenient excuse for people. He should have been fired but I'm not about to put myself or others at risk in protest. In his position he was never going to be waiting hours for an ambulance if he became seriously ill. The rest of us might just find ourselves waiting for one that isn't coming at all.

I am not for a minute defending them. But some people, when frightened, cope by going into denial. They prefer to think the pandemic is a hoax, or a government conspiracy, or believe it does not apply to them. They cope with fear by denying reality, and going about socialising as usual.
And some people are stupid or selfish, and don’t care, thinking that because they are young they will only get it mildly. Not all humans are noble and self sacrificing for the benefit of others!

I think the most damaging part of the DC fiasco was a sharp lack of trust in the integrity, honesty and accountability of those who were supposed to be providing leadership.

It might not immediately translate into 'well, I'm going to visit my friend then' but it greatly weakened any sense of everyone 'doing their bit' and a collective approach to reducing transmission.

The issue with this sort of attitude is that it implies that covid is the only thing that matters and that all other risks and problems are not important.

My friend's elderly father, who lived alone and had recovered from cancer but had ongoing health issues, insisted on following the rules and was brainwashed by this mentality. My friend tried to see him and go into her house but he wouldn't have it. Eventually my friend's sister pretty much broke into the house, to find the place full of rubbish. Their dad was emaciated and very ill. He was brought to hospital where he died two weeks later.

How did staying away from family help him? How would it help someone who was suicidal or a new parent who was struggling and neglecting their baby because they can't cope?

Covid isn't the only threat out there and berating people for trying to survive doesn't help. Some people are socialising and being flippant, yes, but many others are trying to cope, as they always have, in a world that isn't perfect and isn't ever 100% 'safe.'

The extreme tunnel vision caused by this crisis is frightening.

@Ohbabybab

Dominic Cummings had a big impact on this. He broke the collective responsibility. People saw he made individual choices rather than sacrifices and it made them feel like mugs for putting themselves out.

I don’t agree with what Dominic Cummings did but anyone using his actions as an excuse to break the rules is, quite frankly, a moron.

You can’t on one hand be outraged by his actions and on the other copy them. It’s basically an excuse for people who don’t give a shit.

The worst thing is people denying there is a pandemic = the numbers are fake etc or the deaths are mainly old people who were going to die anyway. Cold blooded even if this were true (which it isn't) & the stats they show or the links to further fake information are appalling & there affect on others catastrophic. & the constant ignoring of the fact that far more people who are younger are hospitalised or have long term conditions - who if they had had any other health issues were previously well controlled with little impact on their lives.

*Almost everyone who is a parent has said something along the lines of “and if Alice put her hand in the fire / jumped off a cliff would you copy that too?”.

D.C. was outrageous in what he did but it is no excuse for the lack of intelligence and integrity in copying him*

The problem was that we believed it was law and after the DC shenanigans we were told no, it was just guidance, everyone should do what is best for their family. So, people that were hurting and making terrible sacrifices decided to make their own choices and that eventually leads to a breakdown in social responsibility. It is not our fault. Weak leadership will always lead to social dissolution. I suspect that's the way this government like it. People blaming each other, conspiracy theories flying around means they never feel answerable.

Almost everyone who is a parent has said something along the lines of “and if Alice put her hand in the fire / jumped off a cliff would you copy that too?”.

I disagree with this, and I think you're giving Cummings one hell of an easy pass here. A child copying another child is in no way the same situation as adults looking at the man who was de facto running the country and seeing someone who'd decided that the rules didn't apply and didn't matter.

The politicians and I know Cummings isn't one of those, but bear with me ask us, the public, for vote for them on an understanding of expertise and competence at running a country. This includes handling things if something unexpected happens, like a pandemic. There is hugely significant additional expectations on the behaviour of a politician, and the people that surround him or her, than there is over an eight-year-old and their friends.

The Cummings incident, and Johnson's refusal to sack him at the time, did more to break public trust and goodwill than anything else over the whole year. It crosses political boundaries; Conservative voters as well as Labour, leavers and remainers, etc. It was massively, unfixably destructive. (For balance, I also agree that Ferrier getting on that train and Corbyn going to a dinner party weren't smart either. But neither of them were in government.)

Remember after Johnson was ill and came out of hospital? There was a considerable amount of collective goodwill behind him at that point, even from people who wouldn't normally support him or vote Conservative. The Cummings story smashed all that to bits.

Jake Jones's metaphor of the colander is a good one although he does have form for writing from an angle of 'the general public are stupid' sometimes, but then so would I if I was trying to flog books and columns but I think he's missed the gnat trying to swallow the camel here, by and large. And if this situation is a dam turning into a colander, it was Cummings who blew a massive great hole in the structural wall of the thing in the first place.

It's also worth pointing out that the issue of queuing ambulances isn't a new one, by any stretch of the imagination. It's a huge problem that shouldn't happen, but it's a problem that has been happening for years, without anyone taking any real notice. It's great that people are taking notice now (about fucking time) but making out like it's a new thing isn't accurate - in a 12 month period to the end of 2018, Royal Cornwall hospital was on OPEL 4 alert (ie unable to provide safe care due to demand) for 130 days. That was just one of many across the country that had numerous OPEL 4 alerts.

@trulydelicious

it’s about a failure of personal responsibility and the effects that individual actions can have at a communal, societal level. Every time someone socialises outside their household, or visits a relative, or has a friend round, it’s as if they’re drilling a hole in the dam. Just a small hole: what difference could one visit make? But if enough people drill enough holes, what you’re left with is not a dam, but a colander – and a health service that simply cannot cope

^ This should be shouted from the rooftops

We having been saying this as HCP since last year, no one listens

@InsanityRocks exactly that. It’s not a direct translation from him breaking the rules to others doing it. It’s an ethos and his actions shifted that in the collective.

[quote Ohbabybab]@InsanityRocks exactly that. It’s not a direct translation from him breaking the rules to others doing it. It’s an ethos and his actions shifted that in the collective.[/quote]
You put it much more succinctly

The guardian often pursues its own agenda without giving the whole picture.

From an article before covid in 2019

Hospitals across the country are at “breaking point” as a winter surge threatens to overwhelm the NHS.

NHS trusts have been forced to cancel operations, divert ambulances and leave patients on trolleys as thousands wait for treatment.

In one hospital, four patients were left for at least an entire day before a space on a ward became available.

www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nhs-hospitals-boris-johnson-winter-crisis-emergency-beds-a9242961.html

Who do you think funds the NHS and what do you think will happen when there aren't enough tax payers due to the economy going down the drain to fund an organisation which is overstretched every year often running at 95% capacity?

DC should have been sacked immediately.

@CheltenhamLady Agreed. The Government should have known the wider implications for public health messaging.

@TheDailyCarbunkle is this gentleman's case his daughter could have been an exception of being in a care bubble. It must of been so hard for his daughters - but it does sound like he was putting up barriers & was covid the only reason for this? Nonetheless it was tragic. Covid is the gift that keeps giving in the worst possible way on the individual & family.
I think the argument is not against people who are struggling with emotional or social problems (& recognising that people need them & should have them)but against people's ignorant or selfish attitudes.

@Ohbabybab

Dominic Cummings had a big impact on this. He broke the collective responsibility. People saw he made individual choices rather than sacrifices and it made them feel like mugs for putting themselves out.

No! He was a twat.

But he isn't the cause of anything. He just became the convenient excuse for people who were acting selfishly anyway!

I saw him make individual choices and thought he was atwat! It didn't refect on me at all! His stupidity dd not call into question my own actions. THAT is the excuse iused by others... people who were looking for an axcuse... that he is a rich Tory nobber was just perfect for them... notice you haven't quoted any Labour MPs ... not even the Sainted Jezza!