Let me tell you about my experience with COVID-19 protocols for visitors at my mother’s long-term care facility, a mishmash microcosm of the misguided and superficial policies being practiced across the nation and around the world.
Mostly, these alleged safety measures are a mixture of the dog and pony show, Potemkin village and kabuki theater.
The phrase all hat and no cattle comes to mind.
First, some history, although one official at the facility at which my mother resides once told me that we have to forget history and look ahead. The fact that we were discussing her facility’s poor history in delivering quality care to my mother on many fronts – in this case, specifically food – probably had a lot to do with her dismissal of history and its relevance.
No visits were allowed at this facility over a sustained period in the recent past to prevent, as we were told at the time, visitors exposing residents to COVID-19. We were assured that the visitation ban would not last long.
I begged to differ and offered the two supervisory types who were telling this to me and my brother that I’d bet them $1,000 each at 10-1 odds it would last longer than a month. I also offered to let them go up and down the hall to get others to bet against me, giving the same 10-1 odds.
There were no takers. Too bad, because I’d have booked a lot of profit.
But my mother did test positive for COVID-19 during the visitation closure. Presumably a staffer had infected her, which was just as I had predicted at the time of the bet offerings.
This is what the odds dictated. If you ever visit a long-term care facility, take note of how few visitors there are. Most of the residents are warehoused — forgotten and/or ignored by friends and family. Staff vastly outnumbers visitors.
My mother, despite being 84 years of age and possessing many pre-conditions that were said to make COVID-19 particularly deadly, fortunately came through without problems.
When the facility re-opened to visitors, it was mandated that masks must be worn to enter the facility and while one is inside the doors. Visits are limited to two visitors at a time in the resident’s room. Visiting hours are only 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
There is a sign-in procedure in which names of the visitor and resident, time of entry, and temperature of the visitor are logged. Also various questions are asked. Upon departure, time and temperature again are entered into the log.
The temperature scanning device is suspect, registering me most of the time at 97.9 degrees Fahrenheit. My brother once clocked in at 92.4 or thereabouts, well below the hypothermia threshold of 95 degrees. I’m guessing that was an error.
The temperatures are a running joke with the people who sit at the nearby reception desk. Just today, when my brother and I checked out, me at 97.9 (again) and him with a similarly suspect reading, he remarked that he doesn’t really trust the results and the woman at the desk replied that she doesn’t either.
Then why do them?
There also is a column on the log sheet in which visits are recorded either as accepted or denied. I have seen the column filled out many lines deep beforehand, giving acceptances to people yet to arrive, sign in, or test their temperatures.
Similarly, I have come and gone with no determination of whether the visit I already had made had been approved.
I tell you all this because I am reasonably certain this sort of bureaucratic nonsense is being repeated locally, nationally and worldwide.
Think of how the authorities have flip-flopped on details of whether or not wearing masks helps prevent spread of the virus. Think of the conflicting reports on the effectiveness of vaccines. Think about microscopic percentages of deaths from COVID-19 infections and how we now have headlines blaring numbers of new infections instead of deaths.
Above all, think of how any reports that question the dire assessments of COVID-19, or tell of promising treatments, are censored.
Much of the COVID-19 narrative bears the stench of a psychological operation to keep the citizenry scared and, most of all, compliant.
Against that backdrop, I dutifully don my mask and fill out the log upon each visit to my mother. But I see it for what it is, that being a triumph of style over substance and nothing more.
Sam Ross Jr's site 