The public need to SEE the consequences of not following the rules

A minute or two on Twitter or Facebook and you'll come across someone telling you that the COVID pandemic is overblown and hospitals are supposedly laying empty and collecting dust. We hear that your neighbour's cousins boy has an NC in Sports Science and he's spent a few nights researching on Reddit and has concluded that COVID is definitely not as dangerous as scientists are claiming 🙄.

One of the biggest reasons we see these charlatans catching the public within their denial and down-playing is because the public aren't seeing people on UK news coverage gasping for breath and they aren't seeing people prone and intubated the way we seen patients during the massive influx and the following sustained emergency in the Lodi area of Lombardy.

The rolling coverage of the serious and sustained crisis experienced in the North of Italy did provide a frank and frightening glimpe into critical care and showed a shocking crisis unfolding right before our very eyes. The way we do news here is of course very different and much more restrained, but I believe the government need to be showing the public exactly what is going on and just how horrendous this disease is.

The way critical medicine is traditionally practiced is with quiet dignity with medics and nurses holding the creaking infrastructure and processes together while dealing with ever escalating crisis. However if the public cannot see the way this disease is seriously effecting, injuring and killing people, then they don't see the consequences of not following the public health advice and the restrictions put in place to protect us.

We all need to help amplify the voices of medics, nurses and other NHS staff to ensure the Prime Minister and the government actually take notice and do what they need to in order to tackle the slew of misinformation and 'expert bashing'. It really should not be left to NHS staff to tackle misinformation and those who spread it online.

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