A new front
Let’s protest against…frontline healthcare workers?
Lives are being put at risk and the care of patients disrupted by a spate of hospital incursions from Covid-19 deniers whose online activity is channelling hatred against NHS staff, say healthcare and police chiefs.
In the latest example of a growing trend, a group of people were ejected by security from a Covid-19 ward last week as one of them filmed staff, claimed that the virus was a hoax, and demanded that a seriously ill patient be sent home.
“He will die if he is taken from from here,” a consultant tells the man on footage, which was later shared on social media. Following contact by the Guardian, Facebook took down footage and other shocking posts in which conspiracy theorists described NHS staff as “ventilator killers”.
One guy went to East Surrey hospital with a camera and told a consultant to send that patient there home.
In the footage, a man behind the camera remonstrates with a consultant, who tells him that a patient will die if his oxygen tube is removed. When asked about what treatment is being given, the consultant explains that the patient has coronavirus pneumonia affecting both of lungs and is being treated with steroids and antibiotics.
The man behind the camera says that patient should be brought home and the treatment replaced with vitamin C, vitamin D and zinc, but is told by the consultant: “None of those are proven treatments for coronavirus.”
Also who the fuck are you, what is your medical training, why are you here, why are you telling me what to do, shut up and get out and never come back.
Since New Year’s Eve, when hundreds turned up outside St Thomas’ hospital in London, conspiracy theorists have stalked the wards of as many as a dozen hospitals to gather footage, which has been shared on social media.
Couldn’t someone get them interested in UFOs or alien abductions instead?
The Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK), a union representing frontline medics, said it was unacceptable that staff working themselves into the ground to keep patients safe were having to worry about a new threat from Covid deniers and anti-maskers. It said Twitter and Facebook had a responsibility to ensure those breaking into hospitals to film footage were not given a platform.
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The incident at East Surrey hospital, where police issued fines and warnings and continue to investigate what they described as an “escalation” on social media, comes after the arrests earlier this month of four men allegedly filming inside hospitals in the West Midlands and Worcestershire, and of a woman in Gloucestershire.
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Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents trusts in England, said the incursion was risky both to patients and staff. “Trust leaders are concerned about the recent activities of Covid deniers ranging filming empty areas at night-time and protesting outside hospitals,” he said.
“Entering a Covid ward, putting patient and staff lives at risk and then posting a video online afterwards plumbs new lows. It’s not only dangerous, it’s also deeply disrespectful of the extraordinary efforts by frontline NHS staff who, day in, day out are working flat out to save the lives of seriously ill patients.
I listened to a Radio 4 thing last night on the Covid anniversary, that had frontline staff saying what it was like, and it was utterly heart-wrenching.
Wow.
And subsequently arrested for trespass at a minimum, and for theft of patient information if they snooped.
Wouldn’t it also violate privacy rights of the patients? Not that loss of privacy is as serious as death, but honestly…my doctor takes great care to make sure other people don’t have access to my medical information, and here are people putting footage online…
There are times (all too often these days) when I have little hope for my species.
Is it wrong to long for the days when such easily led crackpots were kept busy with organised religion? Praying, warning the masses to repent, stop drinking, love their fellow man and whatnot? Seems less dangerous than this at any rate.
Based on the couple of conspiracy theorists I know; I’d put money on them already being into that stuff or something else equally kookie.
I’ve never met a conspiracy theorist who was dedicated to only one conspiracy. It’s the epitome of WWG1WGA and why Qanon has found such a rich vein to mine.
This is a very good article on lockdown skepticism in the UK. It’s been partly fueled by grift and attention-seeking from an over-paid section of the commentariat and the government’s vacillating hasn’t helped. Most people have abided by the rules.
“Lockdown scepticism has very often been driven by affluent celebrities. Washed-up actors and faded pop stars have flouted public restrictions while cosplaying as courageous political dissidents. Gurning for maskless selfies in public spaces, they have sought to portray themselves as contemporary versions of Vaclav Havel or Oliver Tambo.
Ironically for a movement suffused with paranoid ramblings about the influence of Marxism and postmodernism, the lockdown sceptics of the right have at times resembled both the postmodernists and the communist fellow travellers of the twentieth century. On everything from lockdowns, masks, and even vaccines, they have demanded that their ‘alternative’ facts be indulged uncritically. Moreover, they have scoured the world for utopia like the useful idiots of the past. Early on during the pandemic there was feverish talk of the ‘Sweden model’. Soon after, when the Swedish Government reversed course ignominiously amid a catastrophic death toll (more than six times that of neighbouring countries), South Dakota emerged as ‘the Sweden of the usa’. However that didn’t end well either: a month later the midwestern state was dealing with one of the biggest covid-19 outbreaks in all of America.”
https://www.the-fence.com/online-only/masked-indifference?fbclid=IwAR30EVkp4P6M0dSmPJf8a0-BaxxVCBYBAto6krLLnfYFLGgrpCfKeLykgN8
“Gurning.” [Thinks: is that a typo? Googles.] “gurn: make a grotesque face.”
And then there’s this (which I haven’t had time to watch in full): https://youtu.be/WWG4fNt3vto
@What a Maroon “gurning” is common in the UK, but usually written. I’ve never heard it in speech.
It’s a great word. Gargoyles gurning overhead.
KBPlayer,
Love it! I wish I’d known it when I was in college–my alma mater is famous for its gargoyles gurning.
“I’m not a doctor but I pretend to be one whenever someone is sick.”