Thread by @fascinatorfun

'Harvesting' is a terrible word – but it's what has happened in Britain's care homes

Generally, it is viewed as a tragic, unfortunate, but largely unpreventable consequence of natural events. It carries with it connotations of an acceptable loss of life.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

But the word also has darker connotations: those of sacrifice, reaping, culling...

While it may appear in textbooks of epidemiology, it doesn’t occur in national influenza strategic plans or national discourse. The concept of harvesting is restricted to epidemiological circles.

But what if politicians promote the notion of harvesting (while declining to use the term) where it is not a “natural” consequence of events but a direct consequence of government policy? What if the medical and nursing world do not accept harvesting in these circumstances?

We tend to leap on words and phrases assuming they have the same meaning for all.

They don’t.

But we CAN measure Government policy & effect.

We CAN check how transparent is their death count.

How honest they are being.

I can imagine decent human beings looking at the scale of current deaths and reflecting “This isn’t what I planned.. We miscalculated. We have to change”

Not trumpet it as “a success”. That isn’t decent.

Language tells us how honest people are being.

This is not a success.

“Today, if you need a lens to examine any country’s response to coronavirus, look to its nursing homes. To understand the scandal of the UK’s response to Covid-19, consider that it is the most vulnerable people who were sacrificed to an unacceptable, unarticulated strategy.”

“Look to the hidden populations residing in nursing homes, those falling through the gaps between the NHS and the social support function of the state”