The Canary has given me the chance to write an article on Lisa Nandy’s ill-advised decision to hold a UK wide Covid Day of Reflection to mark the end of the Covid pandemic. The reason I’m writing this is because the Covid pandemic is very much ongoing.
So, we’re going to give a platform to some voices in this piece – like Long Covid Support, which says:
Dear Lisa Nandy, Covid is not over.
Covid Day of Reflection: WTAF?
On Sunday 9 March 2025 there will be a UK-wide day of reflection to remember the Covid pandemic, said the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport.
What’s wrong with that? I hear you ask.
For one thing, the World Health Organization is very clear that the Covid pandemic is ongoing. In contrast to the World Health Organization, the ableist Labour Party government is determined to sell the lie that the Covid pandemic is over. This is largely because it is doing very little to stop people dying of Covid. Vaccine eligibility is only open to the over 65s and some clinically vulnerable people. People with long Covid like me aren’t eligible.
I feel completely deflated and abandoned.
I have had the stuffing knocked out of me by the ableist Labour government yet again. This time it’s the culture secretary Lisa Nandy’s turn. Many of you will know Lisa Nandy as a staunch Zionist and member of Labour Friends of Israel. Now she’s branching out to gaslight the Covid dead and long-Covid disabled.
Nearly one person an hour dead from Covid
What about marking the day of reflection by reading the names of all of the people who have died of Covid since Labour took power?
At the date of writing, that’s 4,655 people.
That’s an average of over 200 people a week.
It’s really upsetting me how the Labour government has gone out of their way to bury (pun intended) the Covid deaths. Over one person has died of Covid every hour since Keir Starmer was elected PM.
Labour is offering no public health information about the dangers of catching Covid and long Covid. I have longed for a day of reflection like this – but not one based on a lie. If we have to have such a day, let’s spend it telling the truth. The day of reflection will be a massive super-spreader event leading to more Covid deaths and long Covid disablements. It will be more of a day of reinfection than a day of reflection .
Long Covid was named by Dr Elisa Perego, an Italian scientist. Elisabeth Perego has long Covid herself. It’s incredibly important that long Covid is a patient-led disability.
Long Covid patients are the greatest experts, by necessity, on long Covid. It shouldn’t have to be this way. We shouldn’t have to advocate for ourselves. The Labour government should be advocating for us instead of gaslighting us.
That’s why I am sharing the voices of long Covid patients who responded on X to Lisa Nandy’s bad decision and the government’s post about it:
All of the quotes from the article are comments on this post from the
Department For Culture, Media and Sport.
This is what has caused all the upset and outrage.https://t.co/ltRjJN6o2t— SamTheLongCovidUnicorn 🦄 🎄❄️ 🎅 ⛄️ ☃️ (@CounsellingSam) December 17, 2024
Ignoring long Covid, ignoring the risk
Long Covid Support says:
People are still getting COVID many times. People are still dying from Covid. Long term damage is accumulating, and people are still getting a life altering Long Covid. As much as we would love for it to be in the past, this is happening now.
The group also said:
many people are continuing to report attending their hospital appointments and there being no one else masked, including health care staff.
Here’s a reminder that anyone who gets Covid can get Long Covid.
Someone else says:
It’s important to remember who died without framing the pandemic as historical. It’s still impacting communities now. It’s important to remember those who have died from Covid so far, and it’s good to have an event to get people talking about Covid again, But we need to ensure that it doesn’t frame Covid in the past tense. Perhaps we should be supporting the day of reflection, but pushing for some tangible action that would really make a difference as part of this special day.
Ceri Turner says:
How about making the 9th March a COVID19 day of prevention? We cannot talk about COVID in the past tense. It’s still with us. It still causes acute disease and long COVID, and it still kills.
Amy Boylan says:
We can dance naked at midnight, banging saucepans and singing happy birthday while washing our hands, but it won’t make the pandemic history.
People continue to be infected, killing and disabling 1,000,000. We need adults to solve killing and disabling 1,000,000. We need adults to solve this, not magical thinking. Covid is not over.
Covid is not over
Shell says:
Labour is still trying to convince everyone it’s over, for fuck’s sake. My daughter says the school she works in has the highest number of students absent she’s ever known, either puking or they’ve got COVID, some both, unless this remembrance day is to remind people to take precautions you can get to fuck.
Pen Scribbler says:
Can we reflect on the fact that Covid is still here? That people are still dying of it in the UK every week? That loved ones are left to mourn? That those with damaged health face life with no treatment? The tribute the government can make is to prevent more deaths and illness. Why not take this opportunity to remind the public that COVID 19 is still circulating, putting people in hospital and causing death and Long Covid? The Covid Day Of Reflection should be every day, reflecting on how to prevent more Covid deaths before 9th March. The Labour government could reflect on how to make events COVID safe. The Department for Culture Media and Sport could find ways of making sporting and cultural events Covid safe. The Department for Health and Social Care could think about how to keep health care workers and patients safe.
Tagg says:
Is this a serious post? What an insult to the hundreds of families like mine that have lost people this year to Covid and over 2,000,000 disabled by it. You’re offering no prevention measures nationally, nor making public aware of the Long Covid risk. I reflect daily on your incompetence around Covid.
Jules says:
So you don’t need air filtration anymore with Covid gone in Parliament. Mystery illness that so many people got recently. Sickness through the roof. Children’s health disposable so the parents can work taking sick kids to school.
Janice Plant quotes doctor Maria Van Kerkhove of the World Health Organization:
One of the things for me that’s so striking is that the world wants to forget this pathogen is still with us, and I think people want to put Covid in the past as if it’s over.
Dan O’Hara says:
This looks perfectly timed to coincide with the likely peak of the next wave.
In principle, It certainly looks as if the Covid Day of Reflection is going to be the UK’s biggest super spreader event.
Covid Day of Reflection: a super-spreader event
Anne Marie says:
We are going to remember the Covid pandemic that’s still happening. Well, that will be a nice change, I guess. This is utter madness. Can you reflect on the fact that there is currently an ongoing Covid pandemic?
Phil Randall says:
The pandemic is still ongoing. What we need to remember is to filter air in all public buildings and to vaccinate everyone 6 months old and over.
Melinda Bailey Harris says:
As if it’s some faraway event to memorialize when 100 are still dying every week. Millions are suffering from long COVID, including over a 100000 children. Hospitals are currently overwhelmed with COVID, flu, etcetera. How about reminding people it’s still ongoing?
Jo Dainow of Long Covid Support says:
The current high prevalence of SARS Cov2 and long Covid is sadly not in the past.
Alan says:
Is Lisa Nandy trolling us now? It’s an ongoing pandemic. People are still dying of covid much more than with flu, RSV or norovirus. People are still hospitalised.
Kieran Kibble says:
A day of reflection to remember a pandemic that’s still happening and still screwing up all of our health whilst we have no measures in place to mitigate the spread. Brain dead country.
Covid Day of Reflection: government propaganda?
Paul Keeble says:
Another bit of government propaganda to make COVID a historical event. I think having a memorial and formalizing it for the dead so far would be nice, but parts tensing the pandemic is wrong.
Helen Lunt-Davis of Long Covid SOS says:
The COVID pandemic is not over. This should not be framed in the past tense. We should be thinking of it daily and how it is still affecting people.
Long COVID SOS themselves says:
This is a very nice idea, but we hardly need to be prompted to remember the COVID pandemic. We’re living in it right now.
Kat says:
Remember, do you think that means the Labour government will stop pretending the COVID pandemic is over? Charles says, I hope the government will reflect on the fact that COVID is still killing and disabling people every week, and more public mitigations will help.
Chi says:
You speak as if COVID is in the past. People are still dying. The immunosuppressed have been hung out to dry by Wes Streeting and Andrew Gwynn, and the NHS is on its knees because of the non mask narrative.
You really couldn’t make it up.
21 million people dead from Covid
Tedros of the World Health Organization had this to say:
The end of this month, 31st December, will make the 5th anniversary of the first reports to the World Health Organization of pneumonia caused by a then unknown pathogen. In the past 5 years, more than 7,000,000 deaths from COVID 19 have been reported to WHO, but we estimate the true death toll to be at least 3 times higher. We cannot talk about COVID in the past tense.
It’s still with us. It still causes acute disease and long COVID, and it still kills. On average, this year, about 1,000 deaths from COVID 19 have been reported to the World Health Organization each week, and that’s just from the few countries that are still reporting. The world might want to forget about COVID 19, but we cannot afford to. The World Health Organization continues to support countries to prevent and manage COVID 19 alongside other health threats.
Katie’s Voice says:
I feel the government picked the day no one wanted to cause more division among the bereaved . When someone hurts us, they don’t get to dictate our healing process.
Katie’s Voice belongs to Charles Persinger. Charles works tirelessly to tell the story of his wife, Katie, a care home manager lost to Covid during the acute phase of the pandemic. Charles also lost his mother Susan to Covid.
The Labour government is using the Covid Day Of Reflection to sell the massive lie that the Covid Pandemic is over. Labour is committing an even bigger crime, a hijack, a heist.
The Covid Day Of Reflection is meant to mark the fifth anniversary of the start of the Covid pandemic. The Labour government has tried to make the Covid Bereaved Families change their yellow heart symbol. And that’s just the beginning.
It’s still very much with us
When I started speaking to Siouxsie from Covid19Families, she was upset and had had a sleepless night. She told me that some people in their group felt under attack from the long Covid community.
I assured her that we’re angry at the Labour government, not them. So, I asked Siouxsie to give her idea of what her group needs the Covid Day Of Reflection to be. I also asked Siouxsie what others could do to help. She told me that it should be:
A day to remember our loved ones who died during the acute stage of the pandemic and those still dying year upon year as covid is still sadly very much with us.
We come together in our shared grief, many who couldn’t have funerals at all others had funerals with no dignity or respect at the time of their loss. It brings us a huge sense of peace and a way to pay our respects to those who are no longer with us.
Covid19 Families UK have previously, over last four years, held memorial events in Wales, London, Liverpool, Manchester and Milton Keynes. This year a Buddhist temple has kindly given us permission to hold it in the beautiful tranquil gardens of their Temple of Peace.
We have worked, for nearly two years, alongside other bereavement groups on the UK Commission on Covid Commemoration with both the Conservative and Labour governments to get recognition and funding for the Day of Reflection.
Covid 19 Families UK is solely run by bereaved volunteers and relies on donations to fund these events. IF YOU CAN HELP US ACHIEVE CHARITY STATUS or donate no matter how small we will be very grateful.
If you need support join our Facebook group. You can follow us on Twitter, Threads , Bluesky LinkedIn.
Not the kind of reflection that’s needed
In conclusion, I think the UK should have a Covid Day Of Reflection.
However, it must be turned over to the Bereaved Families Group, the Long Covid Charities, and other affected, patient-led groups.
We deserve to tell our stories in our own way.
Everyone must know that the ongoing Covid pandemic is a massive national tragedy and a mass disabling event. Every TV channel must devote an entire day of programming to the biggest UK tragedy since World War II.
Featured image via the Canary
