Care Home Chaos

The explosion of direct and indirect Covid-19-related deaths in Care homes in England, Scotland and Wales was highly predictable. It now transpires, however, that the government rejected plans to attempt to limit the mortality by introducing a radical lockdown in the early stages of the pandemic (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/28/government-rejected-radical-lockdown-england-care-homes-coronavirus). The plans included encouraging carers to (where possible) live in the care home for the duration of the emergency (this was apparently privately done in 1 or 2 cases). A strict lockdown would, of course, greatly reduced the chances of the virus being introduced into the vulnerable populations, in the first place. It was also suggested that some of the (eventually under-utilised) 'Nightingale' facilities could be used for sick residents from care homes and/or their carers. I can appreciate that it might have been difficult to do this uniformly across the entire sector but the thrust of these recommendations seems entirely sensible.