Brits praise their healthcare heroes as the country’s coronavirus continues to grow at a frightening rate
The coronavirus experience in the UK is among the very worst in the world, with the death toll expected to keep climbing. But the heroes of the story are being widely applauded.
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I have a little bit of sympathy for Dracula now.
After 14 days of quarantine because we had symptoms of coronavirus in our house, we finally went outside this week.
The London sun was shining and I felt like a vampire as I squinted my way out of the front door.
We walked down to the park and I saw a man rubbing sunscreen into his head – I found out later he was on to something.
The British Government has extended lockdown now until May 7, with no public details of an exit plan unlike Australia.
The surprising thing is that no-one really minds, everyone is staying inside and the world has stopped.
When people do go out for a walk the two-metre distancing rule was being followed.
And there was a frightening reason for that compliance. We have been getting a daily reminder of a real life horror story playing out in hospitals and nursing homes across the UK.
The death toll chimes each afternoon, with figures of over 700 most days this week as the predicted best case scenario of 20,000 deaths inches closer to becoming a reality.
I would have backed the winner of every Melbourne Cup if I had known the result before the race, and it is inevitable in this crisis mistakes were going to be made.
But allowing 60,000 people to attend the Cheltenham races on March 13 will be judged poorly.
The scandalous lack of testing will come back to haunt British Prime Minister Boris Johnson when he gets back to work after recovering from coronavirus himself.
There were reports that the UK started work on testing in January when the virus first popped its head up in Wuhan.
However, Germany has done millions of tests and Britain was tracking at about 15,000 tests a day, despite claiming it would be able to get to 100,000 by the end of the month.
Behind those figures are the heartbreaking stories, including Mary Agyeiwaa Agyapong, a 28 year old pregnant nurse who died after giving birth by an emergency caesarean.
Her baby was doing well, but will never know its mum.
Mary was one of more than 50 medics in the UK who have died from coronavirus.
The British public has shed tears for those medics who have perished, and thanked those who have been working tirelessly to keep patients alive.
I took a drive this week to make sure that my car didn’t have a flat battery because of so little use.
The roads were deserted, the usual 30-minute jam at the Hammersmith roundabout took 30 seconds.
And the advertising signs usually trying to sell you a car or a fancy holiday were all switched on to messages of support for the National Health Service and encouraging people to applaud them at 8pm each Thursday night.
It’s not much, if it’s anything at all, but my street was out again, banging palms and pots and pans.
If only some of that energy could have been diverted earlier to enter the lockdown earlier.
From here, Australia is looking like a pretty good place right now.
Originally published as Brits praise their healthcare heroes as the country’s coronavirus continues to grow at a frightening rate