People are hell bent on visiting their mothers.
My nan's nursing home has eased restrictions so that you can schedule a 1 hour visit, and my mum is doing that on Sunday.
There's some procedures in place: you have to have evidence of having your flu shot, you get your temperature checked, you have to sign that you don't have covid and haven't been in contact with a known case (but isn't the whole point that most cases are going undetected??)...
She may also have to wear some PPE (which will be limited, because it's still in short supply), but will be visiting nan in her room.
This is available to one relative for every person in the home. And so far as I know, they aren't testing visitors beforehand for beforehand. So, there's no way of actually knowing whether someone will bring it in or not.
Here's the thing - depression in the elderly is a massive massive problem. It genuinely is. And too often goes undetected, or written off as something else (being old, having dementia, etc etc). The people in this home need visitors.
But given what's happened at Newmarch House, the catastrophic consequences of covid entering that nursing home, is that the way to go? Visiting in the resident's room? Really?
My nan is in a really bad way. And tbh, in her personal case? The value of getting to see her daughter in person definitely outweighs the risk. The numbers of known infections in our state are incredibly low.
But surely...perspex screens? Sitting across a large table so you can have you cup of coffee together, then the whole set up can be sanitised for the next guest (because you can't exactly sanitise my nan's room after my mum leaves). And you can't isolate my nan for a period of 14 days after her guest leaves because that would absolutely destroy what remains of her sanity (interacting with other residents is currently what's keeping them going).
But many of the residents aren't in the same state of health that my nan is in. Many of them have every reason to think they have several enjoyable years ahead of them.
But, how much do I trust the visitors of all these residents to be completely frank (answer: zero trust)? Or even have any awareness whatsoever if they're carrying the virus?
And yet, the gates to the dog park are still locked. The childrens play equipment is still off limits at public parks.
The restrictions being eased
do seem to lack the medical evidence that was so heavily present in the way the restrictions were introduced.
If the easing of restrictions doesn't make logical sense, I think we'll lose a lot of the public cooperation we had when they were introduced. We could have put mothers day off for a few weeks this year - it's not like we haven't made (and survived) other massive compromises to beat this thing.
