Covid Crisis: Thousands Dead. But Boris in Bed.
We are being told repeatedly that the coronavirus does not discriminate. It can affect you regardless of your age, gender, nationality, or race. And yet it is quite clear to see that, like in all other aspects of life in a capitalist society, the working-class are disproportionately endangered due to their economic status.
The Times has reported that British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, is being treated at “one of the best respiratory hospitals in Britain”, the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust Hospital. It was reported that Johnson was likely moved from the Howard Ward, a private top-floor unit, to an intensive care unit as his coronavirus symptoms worsened.
The very definition of intensive care is constant monitoring for those who are dangerously, life-threateningly ill. And yet this morning, Rishi Sunak, the British Chancellor, told Sky News that Johnson was “improving”, and “sitting up in bed and engaging”.
An intensive care bed is being taken up by a man who can sit up independently, and breathe without aid, while hundreds are dying daily.
The people who actually are in life-threatening situations are the NHS workers who are forced to continue to work without personal protective equipment (PPE) Doctors and nurses are dying because they haven’t been provided with the protection required to keep them safe, the equipment they are begging the Tory government to provide them with.
Two days ago, over a 24 hour period, 938 people died in NHS hospitals from coronavirus. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation has predicted that the “UK” will have the worst death toll from the coronavirus in Europe.
And on the front pages of the British tabloids is the celebration of a man who is not dangerously ill, who ignored every health warning and has put millions of people at further risk.
The coronavirus, like all illnesses, does not discriminate, but the provision of health care in our society does. It allows for private hospitals and equipment for the rich, while the poor die in hallways and on trolleys.
Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of workers are being refused testing for their symptoms. The statistics for deaths from coronavirus and the numbers of infection are widely regarded as unrealistic and under-representative; the result of testing being continually denied.
And yet the British PM sits in an intensive care unit. The man whose symptoms were a high temperature and a cough.
Many more deaths will occur during this pandemic, and a large number of these will be preventable. If everyone who shows even the mildest symptoms could access testing for the virus, and a hospital bed if needed, these preventable deaths could be avoided. If everyone, indiscriminately, is cared for with adequate resources, perhaps the statistics could honestly reflect the reality of this pandemic.
But it won’t. Because it is one rule for the rich, and another for the rest of us.
