1/ Been working in a care home since pandemic started because back in March I knew they'd be hit hardest, even if govt didn't, and it was best place to offer my skills through the worst of it.

2/ On Thursday I took my ID docs etc into local acute hospital trust and signed up for bank shifts there as and when needed, because I can see that with the second wave coming and many NHS staff already emotionally on their knees, this is where the support is going to be needed

3/ I really did not think I was going to have to do this. I really thought that, while acting too late on first wave, govt would try to compensate by showing some kind of science-led competence to stop big second wave/

4/ But I underestimated just how far basic standards of state governance have fallen. They have simply lost all control. I hope I am wrong about the second wave - that people may take self-managed measures - but I am not hopeful, because people hav been sold the idea that if ...

5/... they go through one lockdown, it will all be better after. But because govt failed in so many other ways, failing trust that truth is being told is conjoining with both a new sense of fatalism and a deadened capacity to mourn those who are dead. It's very sad.