Here’s some more information I think we should be hearing.
What’s happening to people who sleep rough? We know there are cases of people reduced to sleeping on cardboard in garages or in their cars. And people sleeping outside are not unheard of though while everyone is on quarantine they are largely unseen. How are people who are almost always outdoors being protected from infection?
What’s happening to people who have to resort to food banks? Are they still having to congregate in order to eat or have that option been shut down for them?
Has the government provided space for people in extreme hardship to avoid contagion from the virus? Has the government considered hiring disused hotel rooms to help address this problem while we’re being told to stay inside?
Next. How are we dealing with families with a history of domestic violence? Are victims of domestic violence being locked up with their spouses under quarantine without an option for havens that are safe from violence and from contagion from a virus? Have we considered providing past victims of domestic violence with safe room and board in hotels that are currently inoperative because of the shut down in tourism?
Next. We’ve sent all children home for an indefinite period of time. Teachers and educators will no longer be able to spot signs of neglect or abuse in vulnerable children. The normal means of gathering information about the safety and the health of children are switched off. In the UK schools are on shut down from Monday except for specific categories of pupils including vulnerable children. Are children who have been victims of abuse, violence or neglect being followed up here? Do they have a place to go during the day to give them reprieve from unpleasant realities at home?
Another category of children is being allowed to go to otherwise deserted UK schools next week. The children of people working in hospitals and the medical services, police officers, public broadcasting journalists, public transport staff and other strategic workers the country needs to fight the virus. These people cannot work from home and they shouldn’t have to choose between fighting the virus or helping their children with school work. What about the children of our strategic workers? Our schools are shut down for them and they certainly cannot stay with the grandparents. What support is being provided in these situations?
How many of the children who have to stay at home depended on the help of a learning support assistant before the virus hit? How is their learning being supported now? Surely we can’t let their educational vulnerabilities become an irreparable disadvantage because of the virus crisis.
Next. The elderly are asked to stay alone at home. Many of them get phone calls from their children and grandchildren. In those cases, we will know if something where to happen to them. But who is checking in on people who are really alone? Loneliness was an eviscerating social malady before this crisis started. We now have institutionalised isolation without a set end date for this confinement. What are the authorities doing to mitigate the risks for vulnerable elderly people here?
There are more vulnerable members of our communities.
Consider people who were on the brink of poverty in February but not quite poor enough to be on the priority lists. Where do they ask for help now that public assistance offices are shut down? When will we learn of their despair and be able to alleviate it?
Consider immigrants who suffer prejudice and casual discrimination under ordinary circumstances without massive job culls and government ministers telling them to go back to their country.
Consider people who become unwell for any reason except coronavirus. At any other time, they could easily have their condition checked and treated. Is that still the case now?
We are all going through a forced change to our lives the scale of which can only be compared to total war, an eerily silent, sunny, total war. And though the government is counting the wounded and thankfully there are still no dead to count, the authorities are remarkably absent in providing the most vulnerable in our community guidance on how to get help getting over this.
This is not a two-week disruption. We’re in this for more time than this lackadaisical attitude of our government can ever justify.