I'm calling the recruitment agency on a daily basis regarding these contact trace vacancies. There was another similar vacancy (but slightly different role) that I had to email someone my cv; I've never even had a response from her so given up on that one. It's odd because the target that the government are attempting to recruit for tracers is increasing daily according to the media, and every day they are about 1000 short of the target. The chap I've come to know now at the agency, tells me that the only reason I'm not getting a response yet is that they don't have a start date. That fact doesn't appear to be stopping the government from recruiting ever-increasing numbers. Perhaps it might be a bit like Matt Hancocks 'completed tests' numbers; one day when it exceeded 100,000, it transpired that 40,000 of that number were merely tests that had been posted/delivered, not actually conducted.
According to the politicians, the start date for track and trace is the 1/6/20. That is leaving ten days for the agency to vet my application, and if I was successful for me to be trained and ready. Seems a tight schedule to me.
I bike around my town, and I see gatherings of 12-15 people on our cricket ground lawns. The occasional driving school car is spotted. The private lessons are still taking place. I see taxi drivers going about their business; one yesterday was not even pretending to play the game by wearing a mask. The big supermarkets created a plastic divider between a shopper and till person but left it entirely open where the card keyholder is, so when you go to pay, there is less than a metre (face to face). It's all getting a bit strange.
There seems to be increasing heat being generated due to driving tests that were postponed from the original suspension. That period is coming to an end next month so many instructors are quite understandably wondering whether those tests will go ahead, and if so, whether they are able to train their pupils prior to the test. The situation is further fuelled by some instructors desperately needing to start earning money. The result is that we have the 'booking system' creating an apparent opportunity to earn, but the lockdown is, of course, still in place. That is a bit of a heady mixture, and emotions are running high.
The 80% financial assistance provided to the self-employed, which was processed by the government, to their credit, ahead of schedule, does not provide the same assistance to all. It sounds obvious, but actually, when you dig down, it could well be perceived as highly divisive. They had to draw the line somewhere, as is the case with these things, inevitably some are going to be within the boundary and content, and others will fall by the wayside. I genuinely feel very sorry for those instructors who have very little financial assistance in these times. There are rumblings between instructors of the potential for the 80% financial assistance being extended; nothing more than a canard as far as I can tell. It was always intended to cover Mar-May (inc), so some are now wondering if it will extend into the summer. I've mentioned it before on this blog, the "bill" for this lockdown, whether they extend it for self-employed or not is going to be colossal.
For my peace of mind, I have to compartmentalise the decision making of the government in early March. The nerve of Macron to threaten closing down of borders if the UK doesn't up its game and protect its citizens. We effectively had members of an anonymous committee playing God. By "protecting the NHS" at all costs, clearing out hospital beds and immediately ceasing all treatments in the pipeline, they seemingly had the power to over-ride the Hippocratic Oath and tell the medical profession to turn their back (and their resources) on the needy. Why? For a pandemic that has cost 40,000 lives in the UK so far. Tragic as each one of those deaths undoubtedly is, you do now have to wonder what the cost in human life will end up being for all those poor souls who had discontinued treatment.
Hospitals have long been running at significantly lower capacity; medical staff complain of being bored. Don't get me wrong, I imagine it is still pretty intense dealing with the 300-400 daily C-19 deaths, but you can't help but wonder where all the other needy are? The patients who would normally have been in the wards, and more to the point, how are they?
A shameful disaster has unfolded, and the way Matt Hancock talks about his beloved NHS, you can see why. It's never a good sign when the apparent needs of the organisation outweigh the needs of the people it is designed to serve. So intent was the desire to "protect" the NHS, unwell people have been neglected. These Tory politicians cannot bear the thought of an organisation like the NHS being overwhelmed on their watch. Just imagine the costs of all those satellite hospitals that were erected. They locked down an entire country so as to avoid the seemingly unacceptable possibility of the NHS being stretched. I rather suspect that Hancock will lose his job for such a misguided judgement. The pain continues because clearly, once you tread that particular path, you are committed to it. So all the rules that were in place to initially protect the hospitals from being overwhelmed are STILL being enforced to further protect the hospitals from being overwhelmed. Oh, my word - do the honourable thing and make a u-turn.
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