Fancy dress for NHS
Time will tell if he makes the fullest of recoveries and, if he does, it won’t take long for the sniping to start around his handling of the crisis and the delay from first case to lockdown.
It may be that all a rejuvenated Labour need to do to regain power is behave themselves for five years under the leadership of Keir Starmer – but that seems a long time to keep Ed Miliband away from a bacon roll.
Obviously I didn’t want Boris to die as I consider myself a nice person and don’t think I want anyone to die even Donald Trump but we’ll keep that one under review, dear readers.
I thought Nicola Sturgeon did us proud with the get-well message from “all of Scotland” and it made me consider that Scottish people as a whole are good eggs and Twitter is no reflection of the general population.
However, I drew the line at “Clap for Boris” as there was no way he was getting a round of applause just for getting ill. That’s a carry-on stretching into a piece-of-nonsense territory.
At this rate we’ll be up and down like a fiddler’s elbow at 8pm every night giving someone or something a clap. At one point they even had the bagpipes oot. Of course I don’t mind a weekly pot banging for the heroes of the NHS and the carers but let’s give them some decent personal protective equipment (PPE) first.
On the subject of PPE which along with testing and modelling are central tropes of the outbreak, why is it that our doctors and nurses look like someone going to a Halloween fancy dress party as a doctor or a nurse?
You could almost replicate their outfit with tissue paper, marigolds and a pair of swimming goggles.
Compared to other countries like Italy and China, for example, there seems to be a severe lack of good PPE doing the rounds, with some healthcare workers taking Chernobyl-type risks to save lives. Not good enough.
At this point I’ll move on to Scotland’s former Chief Medical Officer Catherine Calderwood and the twohomes debacle that led to her resignation.
Before anyone starts rattling their cage, I totally understand that she had to go and her position was untenable.
As open goals go, the Sun newspaper was presented with the easiest of opportunities and there’s no doubt this was in the public interest given Calderwood’s position as the chosen face of the campaign to get us all to stay indoors.
However, I still feel sorry for her on a human level, even as a former tabloid hack, and acknowledge the impact this must be having on her kids. A good person who has helped a lot of people and certainly didn’t ask to be thrust into the public spotlight in this way has come a cropper and no-one benefits.
Things have started to get tricky for the Scottish Government and their handling of the crisis despite widespread praise being heaped on oor Nicola.
The chief nursing officer telling care workers not to wear masks unless the person they’re looking after has symptoms of coronavirus was a bit shabby but we can ill afford another resignation.
You’re not allowed to make mistakes any more – everyone wants blood and the days of getting a row and apologising are long gone. The stakes are far too high.
Take care and wash yer hands.