Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 18th April 2024 Issue no. 1110
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Although I've never been one to make New Year's resolutions, I tend to come out of the holidays feeling pretty positive about life. It will probably come as no surprise when I say I'd expected this year to be different, but I had little idea before the holidays, how bad things would get, so quickly. I'd read months ago that we'd likely be in lockdown in England until June but I'd (naively perhaps) expected that the extent of our confinement would be drip-fed to make it easier for us to bear. The announcement this week that we'd immediately be confined to our homes again until the end of March has come as something of a blow to many who are wondering when - and even if - it's all going to end.
Mind you, having spent much of last year not knowing anyone who'd even been hospitalised with Covid-19, to losing two family members in different parts of the country to it over the space of two months - and having a third hospitalised (again, from a household unrelated to the others), has brought home to me how real this thing is. Worryingly, through talking to people in support and social media groups, I've learned that many of those who've caught it can't fathom out how they managed to catch it and from whom or what, as they've had little or no contact with anyone for several months!
With the need to provide hospital beds for the sudden surge of admissions which generally come at this time of year anyway, the protocol seems to once again be to move the elderly who aren't in need of critical care, (but who may be carrying Coronavirus without anyone's knowledge) into nursing homes that are already full of vulnerable people. Once Covid-19 infiltrates a hospital non-Covid ward or a care facility, it can be extremely difficult to eradicate but is easy to spread outside, since the workforce goes home at the end of the shift - and unless everyone's adhering to the same high standards of personal hygiene and top-notch cleaning, any weak link is likely to prove catastrophic. I'm hoping that all those cleaners who are no longer required to maintain our now empty offices and non-essential shops, can be trained to work in our health and social care facilities instead, as without extra help, expertise and commitment, we're never going to shut this thing down, are we? F
inally, if you're planning to vote for the Federation of Window Cleaners in the National Association Awards, today's the last day you can do so: https://nationalassociationawards.co.uk/public-vote/
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Yours,
7th January 2021