Are we living with a virus that changed the world or ignoring it? - Jayne Dowle

I’m glad that those in charge are “not overly worried” as reporters have been informed. That must be nice for them, especially as there are so many other terrible things happening in the world right not, but I’m certainly not feeling sanguine about the situation.

At the end of this month it will be a year since my teenage children lost their father, who contracted coronavirus during a hospital stay to treat a brain tumour.

His name has joined the 163,000-plus fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, daughters and sons in the UK with ‘Covid’ on their death certificate. We will never know whether it was Covid or his condition which presented the cause of death, but not knowing makes it even more difficult to bear for those he left behind.

That and this latest news about rising case numbers – official figures said last Thursday that the rolling daily average is now up to 49,437, 49 per cent higher than on March 1 – will not ease the pain of anyone watching helplessly as a loved one lost their battle with the virus.

Like us, they will have been prevented from visiting or even seeing them through a window because of the draconian social distancing rules still in place last year.

A week before Jack and Lizzie’s dad died, we had already driven 60 miles down the M1 to visit him for the last time in a Surrey hospice when the matron phoned. That morning he had tested positive, so we would not be allowed access.

If those ministers feeling so laid-back about things now could have seen the stricken looks on my children’s faces when we had to turn back north at Trowell services, they might not be so blasé.

Their dad died a week later and Jack and Lizzie had no choice but to say their final goodbye via Facetime. Perhaps if those same Ministers had been in my daughter’s bedroom that Sunday afternoon, they might think twice about shrugging off so easily more than two years living under what felt at times like martial law.

At the funeral, a few weeks later, social distancing regulations were still being strictly adhered to. During a particularly poignant moment in the service, I reached out instinctively to touch my 15-year-old daughter’s hand and realised that she was simply too far away from my grasp.

Like many people who lost family members, friends and colleagues to or with Covid, I have particular and personal reason to feel bitter.

That said, I know we all have to move on. And no-one would wish to return to those awful days last spring, when although the vaccination programme was well underway, none of us really knew was going to happen next.

The Prime Minster has stated his aim that we must now learn to live with Covid. And so, it would seem, have other politicians. In all the coverage of Ukraine, I’ve heard Covid mentioned just once – when a reporter remarked upon the spread of a ‘Covid-like cough’ in the bomb shelters of Kyiv.

My question is this: Are we living with the virus which changed the world – or ignoring it in the hope that it will eventually go away?

Ignoring it is increasingly difficult to be honest. Almost every day, I’m hearing of someone who has tested positive, often for the second or third time.

When my mother attended our local hospital last week for a routine procedure, she was advised that the full Covid-preventative regime had been reinstated; she had to take two tests, attend alone and was warned to expect medical staff in full PPE.

Covid-related admissions to English hospitals now average 1,165 a day, up 23 per cent since the end of February.

If this is happening, why is no-one in government saying anything about it?

Obviously, since the ‘partygate’ revelations came to light, the Government’s position vis a vis coronavirus is now deeply invidious.

But as we look at Ukraine and reflect upon what freedom really means, we are well within our rights to ask searching questions about our approach to Covid.