The day Dominic Raab, speaking for the Government, announced another three weeks of lock-down as the numbers dying appears to be nearing its peak, except for deaths in care homes and in the Intensive Care Units.
GP nephew Richard returned my call. He has just been drafted into a local Midlands ICU and has had just two days dealing with Covid-19 patients. He says they have more doctors than patients at the moment and are preparing for a wave to hit them.
On the news it had just been confirmed that twice as many men than women are dying, 50% put on ventilators die, and many more black and “ethnic minority” members are dying than whites, and that age – and the number of “underlying conditions” one has also increases risk. Why the figures are as they are is as yet not known. Richard said that if the symptoms appear you call 111. They asses on the phone if you need an ambulance to take you to hospital. This is based on the severity of your reported symptoms.
The hospitals so far are not overwhelmed and if symptoms spread to the lungs with incapacity to breath, they give oxygen for as long as is needed. The fight for breath can be tough and very unpleasant. If one continues to deteriorate they put you under anaesthetic, tube down the throat and onto a ventilator where you are continuously monitored. You are unconscious, have no pain and live or die. If you live you are taken off and sent home where you will take weeks or months to recover from a very weak state. He thinks since we are both unusually fit for our age, the chances of us having to get to the ventilator stage are low. So there we are.
It also seems to me that sooner or later, possibly not for weeks, months or even years, we will nearly all get it, though how seriously is anyone’s guess. It could have very mild symptoms.
Richard is extremely straightforward and confident and it was really good to speak to him. He thinks both he and Sophie have had it in a mild form.
Received a thoughtful and knowledgeable email from a friend about my paper on Special Divine Action (ie miracles) and my paper Is Wright Wrong by the theologian and former bishop of Durham N.T. Wright, who accepts SDA. I also received on line and replied to a paper by a Dr Gocke entitled The Many Problems of Special Divine Action – which he thinks he can explain away. He certainly does not answer my problems. I will place the correspondence under Religion. Will he reply to me? I doubt it.
After watching Wolf Hall with Elizabeth tried UTUBE and there was NT Wright at Yale. Encouraging to see that while I think he is very wrong, I do not misunderstand him.
Spent the afternoon clearing the garden shed of intrusive creepers and other rubbish. Satisfying. Our daily routine is to watch Channel 4 News with John Snow and Cathy Newman. It comes on at 7 pm. At 8 we went to our front door and clapped loudly in support of the NHS. Most but not all our neighbours did the same. Now the 3rd time.