On the care home issue, it's worth remembering the sheer panic in the early stages of the pandemic about the NHS being overwhelmed, and how urgently they were trying to clear space to make room for a Lombardy-style tsunami of cases. (1/2)
Even at that stage doctors were worried about patients being decanted into care homes from hospitals (and vice versa if there were outbreaks in the homes) - but everyone in NHS and govt was frantic, ragged and making all kinds of snap decisions under immense pressure (2/2)
Obviously no one was saying 'hey, care homes don't matter, let's dump patients there'. But there seems to have been a calculation made - wrongly, it turns out - that they could isolate any infected patients while freeing up space in hospitals for the tidal wave...
Update: this thread from a doctor says all of this much better
