Virtual fencers - en guard!

I made a pact with them today that if they had PE in their school timetable, then they must do something - whether it be a walk in the rain with me and the pooch, Joe Wicks or the saving grace - a fencing lesson over Zoom - They opted for the latter!

Another ok day today.  The new desk was a success - I managed a good upright session this morning and now that I have sorted out all the cables, the monitors don't switch off when I raise it as the power leads don't extract themselves!  I managed another lunchtime run/slog through the mud with the pooch - he enjoyed it, I, perhaps a bit less so!

I am going to add a new section (courtesy of an idea from a fellow clipper - a section on what to be grateful or thankful for.  So here is mine for today:

What to be thankful for:

My immediate family and wider family (Parents, Uncles, Aunts, Brothers and Sisters and their families) who remain untouched by the virus itself (although not the impact of the restrictions placed upon all of us).  

I say this having watched a pretty harrowing piece on the BBC 6pm news of the intensive care unit at University College Hospital in London.  Normally critical care nurses deliver one on one care.  Not now.  According to the report, they are at best in some of the worst affected hospitals working to a ratio of 1:3 or 4.  

Is the answer to move the patients to the Nightingale hospitals to leave the regular hospitals to deal with the rest of the cases that come through their doors? I guess it would if there was a magic pool of spare ICU staff kicking about.  Sadly, there isn't.  Should there be?  I am not sure.  As a nation, it is simply not possible to cater for every eventuality and the NHS has so many demands placed on it, that I guess it is staffed to be able to cope with the normal influx of patients and short lived surges.  What it can't do is deal with the long term surge that last for long periods of time.  At this moment what we really could do with is 2 or 3 NHS worth of ICU staff.  That way, one could be at the coal face, one could be recovering and the other preparing to step up next.  Unfortunately the NHS isn't a Navy or an Army Division and can't do that. I don't believe there is any country that can do that.  What the NHS is though, is a single amazing entity that will win, no matter what, despite taking a few knocks on the way. 

The answer, before too many people suggest it, to call in the military nurses and doctors to help won't solve this aspect of the problem.  In peacetime, most of them work in the NHS hospitals already - so they are already there.

I think also, there are so many variables and different scenarios or circumstances affecting people that it is simply not possible to legislate for all.  I have a degree of sympathy for anyone, be they politician, scientist, medic, paramedic, logistician to name but a few, who have to take decisions, most of which will please some, but not all.  

So on that basis, I shall wish you all a good night and hope that tomorrow is a better day, even if only in a small way.

Stay safe everyone.