Coronavirus Action Group Commemorates Health and Care Workers

THE HEALTH and care workers who have died from COVID-19 were remembered at a socially-distanced event outside Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow on Friday (3rd July). Supporters of Harlow Coronavirus People Before Profit Action Group read out the names of 242 people employed in the health or social care services in the UK who are known to have died from the disease, and paid moving tributes to two local victims.

Participants in the event wrote messages supporting the NHS on a large sheet of paper attached to a wall by the Hamstel Road entrance to the hospital. Some laid stones with slogans such as “Give Key Workers a Pay Rise”, “Happy Birthday NHS”, and “Migrants Make Our NHS” along the edge of the grass verge.

“I think that everyone recognises the outstanding service of all those who have worked in care homes, hospitals, and other essential services during the COVID-19 pandemic” said John Wake, speaking on behalf of the local Coronavirus Action Group. “However, simply thanking them is not enough. Remembering those who died is not enough. We have to ask why so many of these workers lost their lives? We have to ask why the number of deaths per million from this disease in Britain is one of the highest in the world?” he added.

“Scientists such as Neil Ferguson from Imperial College have stated that the death toll in this country would have been half what it is had the government ordered a lockdown just one week earlier. Why have the inhabitants of this country been failed by the powers-that-be? We need to ensure that there are far-reaching changes in the response by the state to the threat of disease, so that never again will frontline medical and care staff be forced to face a raging pandemic without adequate supplies of personal protective equipment.”

Friday evening’s event was organised to mark the 72nd anniversary of the founding of the National Health Service. It was part of a countrywide day of action called by the People Before Profit Health Worker Covid-19 Activists Group to draw attention to a number of issues arising from the pandemic, including its disproportionate affect on people from Black, Asian, or ethnic minority backgrounds.

A report issued by the Office for National Statistics on 19 June 2020 found that the COVID-19 death rate of Black males between the ages of 9 and 64 was 4.7 times greater than the death rate of White males in the same age range. The COVID-19 death rate of males of Bangladeshi or Pakistani backgrounds between the ages of 9 and 64 was 4.3 times greater than the death rate of White males in the same age range.