100,000 How did it get so bad?
Government blunders, delays and U-turns have cost so many lives
UNIONIST RAPHAEL PARKINSON, 62
ACTIVIST Raphael was just 62 when he died in October, leaving behind Laura Watts, his partner of eight years.
Unison officer Raphael, from Liverpool, was a leading anti-racist and socialist campaigner in his community. Laura’s grief is compounded by the Government’s shambolic response to the pandemic.
She says: “The toll is making me feel worse. From the beginning, the lack of PPE, everything. This Government’s been incompetent the whole way through. It’s devastated me. Raphael was a loving partner, we had great fun together and had a future planned.”
Before Raphael’s condition deteriorated in hospital, he was exchanging texts with Laura, 53.
She says: “In one message he said, ‘Thanks for what you’ve done for me’ and I said, ‘Of course, I love you and know you’d be supporting me’ – then I said, ‘Don’t get soft on me!’ I miss him.”
CHRISTINE DURBIN, 61
AMANDA Provis is heartbroken over the death of her mother Christine during the first wave.
The civil servant from Ton Pentre, South Wales, says 61-year-old Christine died at home. She says: “She became ill five days before she passed away. Her chest was bad, she couldn’t breathe.
“She spoke back and forth on the phone to the doctor and they said it was highly likely she had it but she was managing at home and they didn’t feel a need for her to go into hospital.
“Then on April 7 my father had got out of bed and left my mum there sleeping – he thought she was sleeping. When he went to wake her she had already passed.”
Mum-of two-Amanda, 42, was devastated she couldn’t comfort her dad. Through tears, she says: “I wanted to be with Dad but he said, ‘No, I need you to stay away, I don’t want you to have this’.”
HGV DRIVER JIM RUSSELL, 51
WHEN Jim got a “wee sniffle” on March 21, it didn’t cause him or his fiancee Connie McCreary much concern.
But six days later the 51-year-old Glaswegian HGV driver was suddenly hit with a fever and sweats. A week later he was in hospital and a few days after that was put on oxygen and then a ventilator.
Student funding assistant, Connie, 46, who was due to marry him in the summer, says: “I spoke to him just before he was intubated. He was terrified. I just told him to fight it and pull through. That was the last time I spoke to him.”
Jim’s life support was turned off on May 4, 28 days later. Connie says: “They told me there was nothing else they could do for him, because it had just destroyed his lungs.”
But she has found support with the Covid19 Families UK Facebook group and adds: “The group has been a saviour for us all.”