Report transcript in: Anna's story -Narratives of the Global Impact of COVID-19

Please Report the Errrors?

on.

Hi, Anna. Would you introduce yourself and tell me a little bit about yourself?

Yeah. Hi.

Is Isaac I'm an

I'm

Oh, who am I?

Um,

Lots of things. I guess I'm a disabled person.

I live in Leicester.

I'm

tired.

My phone is tired. No, um,

I suppose I'm I'm

I I wear different hats on different days.

Um, one of the things I do is,

um,

I'm one of the conveners of a thing called social care Future. Sort of trying to

improve things, I guess, for people that draw on social care.

But I also

generally

sort of con gently challenge and, um, sometimes more forcefully challenged, like

health social care.

I just trying to use my lived experience, I guess,

as a disabled person and as somebody with, like, multiple long term conditions to

try and force the system to kind of

work with people,

I guess.

And

yeah, and I'm also

an tea addict,

as was previously

connected.

So lots in there. Um, can I ask you what

your passions are like? What makes you dick? Like, what's the thing? That

this is an interesting question.

And this is where perhaps,

um,

yeah, because I I've I've done a lot of thinking of this in the last few years,

but I I think

I think one of the things that I'm

I like people, I think so. I I really enjoy

spending time with people finding out about

people and just generally kind of spending.

Yeah,

but I think also

one of my biggest drivers at the minute is

one of my things is sort of injustice.

I think has always kind of got me in different ways.

And I think

and I mean, there's so much at the moment.

You almost have to switch off to some of

it because you I can't fight every battle and like

it's overwhelming sometimes, like on the news and on the

Yeah. I mean, it's just so many things that you could want to

fight for or try and help, and

you sort of feel quite powerless at times, like,

sort of you've got refugees in one hand and

you've got cost of living and you've got like,

just so many injustices it feels like, But

I suppose

I've tried to channel some of that into

a small bit that I think hopefully I can try and change,

Um, and maybe make some little difference somewhere.

Um,

and I guess that's a passion, because I think that's always been there,

even since I was a kid on different things, like sense of like, trying to

and it's exhausting.

But

I think if I didn't do it, I'd just feel a bit like

What's the point? Like, what am I here for? Sort of.

And,

yeah, so I don't know. That's not really probably what you meant.

You probably meant like music. And

don't know, but

I do like photography.

I do, um, enjoy taking photos and being creative in certain ways.

Um,

I don't know if that's a passion or more.

Just a thing that I enjoy, you know, doing sometimes. Yeah.

Thanks, Anna.

So a

lot in what you've already said. So this,

um,

space that we've got together, I really wanted to explore with you.

And this might be your direct experience.

It might be the experience that you have in terms of

being someone involved in social justice issues for disabled people.

So what impact did COVID-19 the COVID-19 pandemic and

lockdowns have on your life as a disabled person?

Yeah, it's a very interesting one for me

because it was quite

in one way.

I thought I was very lucky, actually, you know, I didn't have any of these huge.

I didn't have any,

Um, very close, uh, fam like losses.

Um, and I myself didn't get

really ill. So in one way, I feel like I came through it quite unscathed compared to

many other people.

Um,

and it's kind of a strange I mean, now it almost feels like it was a dream,

doesn't it like it?

Kind of like it was some sort of film that happened or something.

Um,

I think very early on

it didn't feel real. And

almost initially, there was a slight,

um,

relief for me in the sense of,

like not having to go and travel and do it like my body was like, Oh, OK.

I can just sort of

stay in and not feel bad about staying in,

like, perhaps for a few weeks.

That was, like, actually a relief, which sounds weird, but I think, actually,

probably was a bit

and then just the sense of like, wanting to do the right thing, and

I I don't know. Then there was obviously stuff around, like shielding and things.

And

I feel like the first few weeks

everybody had to stay in

and everybody pretty much was, unless they, you know, did certain jobs.

Or they could do their one hour of exercise,

um, which I wasn't doing because of

shielding. But like

I felt very much,

I felt a bit more like part of society because everything went online.

Suddenly there was like comedy shows online. You could watch a ballet online and

and everybody suddenly was having this experience where they felt like a

lot of their stuff. Their normal choices were taken away

and they had to kind of adapt their life and

and they didn't have as much freedom as normal.

And I felt a bit like

suddenly

we were all experiencing the same thing

because I think that's how I often feel. You know, I don't

like,

you know, evenings and weekends and stuff like that.

I've very rarely actually managed to do stuff at those times,

partly because I don't have the energy and partly because I don't have

enough support at the right times and people that want to work those times and

and I certainly don't have spontaneity. And

and I I felt a bit like OK, Yeah, like we're all experiencing it together.

And that actually felt quite nice for me

in a slightly warped way. I know that sounds. I mean, obviously, don't get me wrong.

The pandemic was horrible.

And watching the images and stuff that was coming out

of other countries like Italy and stuff was horrible and just

sort of knowing what was coming and the

the

the things in care, homes and stuff. It was horrible to

to watch,

but that almost didn't feel real either. That sort of felt a bit detached as well.

It was It was a really strange time.

And

yeah, it's sort of a weird memory now,

but initially for me, I think I just almost

sort of went OK. I can do I I can do this. I know how to do this.

It didn't seem, I suppose such a shock to me

to be in, because I've I've had to spend,

you know, chunks of time in before for various, like, health reasons, or

I sort of knew how to do it.

And

yeah,

what was the

Oh, the the whole thing. And then,

yeah, Then there was shielding.

So then that was harder when, like, the lockdown started to lift

and everybody started to just go back to like, their lives.

But we were still stuck indoors. Uh, shielding. That was harder,

because it it felt like we were forgotten again and just sort of, like,

not a priority. Definitely.

Um,

it was like the priority was to get other people's lives back to normal

and just, like, let the look up the ones who are, like, more vulnerable.

And then other times, I think it just felt like

society got more divided again.

It's like people take sides on everything now. So

there were people that were pro mask or anti mask or pro vaccine Anti vaccine.

Oh,

yeah, All of that stuff's a bit.

Yeah.

Sorry. That's a lot of

often.

No, I just I So I wanted to go back to a few points.

So you said

that,

um,

you you felt quite

it.

It wasn't as different for some of your experiences

because of the lack of support you get I've had

and living with long term health conditions. Sometimes you

so I'm just wondering like, do you? Did you

did you worry about kind of getting covid and getting the help, Um,

that you might need,

I don't know. So I had at that point in time,

I'd had one p a that had left had just left, I think just before covid.

So I only had one p a and and I made the decision. Obviously she'd keep coming and like

she

who was being really careful the rest of the time, like

And I I was very careful.

I did stay in pretty much. I think I went out like, three times in a

and they they were for hospital appointments.

So otherwise I did just, you know, I did properly shield.

So in that sense, I was careful.

But I think

don't know, I I I always have a slight sense. And maybe this is because,

you know,

on average, probably once a year, I end up in hospital, and I

and usually

it in theory, it's something that is could kill me mostly. But but never doubt.

And I suppose I I'm not

I'm not I don't live my life terrified of

I sort of think something will get me at some point.

And if it had been covid,

I think I was more worried about, like, long covid as well, like actually thinking.

Yeah, OK, you could end up really ill and have to go into hospital and stuff,

which would not be nice,

but

the long covid thing seems like

almost to have been ignored. But actually, I thought

I'm already, you know,

struggling in life that

adding more of that on top would have been really quite a challenge.

So, yeah, I definitely didn't want to get it.

And I was careful, and I did everything I could to avoid it. But I wasn't,

like,

really anxious in the sense I I suppose I'm not usually

a kind of anxious person in the sense of like,

I tried to kind of

look at the start to look at the data, to look at that and then

modify the risk as much as I can,

and then kind of just live my life rather than like, I wasn't sat at home like, really

anxious about it, If that makes sense, I just tried to Yeah, avoiding

as best I could.

So you talked about she

so like I was just wondering, how did you make sense of

knowing what you were gonna do? Like how Did like what did Yeah,

Yeah, I mean, initially,

initially, I wasn't on the

early shielding lists

officially

because I didn't

I can't even remember now, like how, what qualified and what didn't qualify.

But at some point, I just basically made a decision fairly early on that

because of all my different things that are wrong with me,

like this would not be a good

um,

like I'm I was a lot less likely to do well.

And then

as time went by

and more data started to come out,

that kind of seemed to back up.

And then at one point, I spoke to one of my consultants on the phone

and he was just like, Yeah, don't don't go out. Just like And then

quite late, I actually, Then the government changed the guidelines,

and I officially

kind of got started getting the shielding letters, and I was properly

and it was almost a bit past that. So

it meant I didn't get any of the official support early

on when they were doing the like food deliveries and stuff.

I didn't get any of that because,

or like you could get priority slots at the supermarket, stuff like that.

I wasn't official then, so I never got any of that stuff.

Um,

and by the time they did suddenly go Yeah, actually, statistically

you should you would You should shield. It was like,

near the end. It wasn't near the end, but it wasn't as

so Yeah, It was a bit of a mess, I think. And

I think that then made it very hard for people to trust

when they then stop shielding

to trust the government. That

or to trust, that those decisions were being made,

it was very hard to sort of understand the risk. And

obviously, things moved on. We got the vaccines and stuff like that,

and so the the landscape changed. But

I think

because it just felt early on, so confused it. It didn't make it easy to think.

Oh, they know what they're doing.

So yeah.

Yeah. So you live in a place that has

a really complicated

um,

So there's a lot of kind of different rules compared to other places

that Yeah, we did Yeah,

I've forgotten that. Yes, we did.

We had a massively extended lockdown,

and we were like, the only city that never came out that first year of lockdown,

even in the summer.

Nice.

Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, I ask you a question. Sorry. Yeah, I forgot my question.

you talked about the lack of trust. Do you Do you feel

that? Was that a thing that existed before or that became more prominent, like

trust Seem to kind of really feature heavily in your answer there. Um,

I think I so I obviously like. So I, um,

trained as a then qualified as a doctor, right? So I've worked as a medical

person, profession or whatever. Um,

and I

therefore I think have quite a high level of trust in kind of

medical science,

generally of sort of evidence based stuff when I can see the evidence and I can see the

the understanding and I can see the,

you know,

and I suppose, an understanding of how,

things like diseases and viruses, work and stuff, which I think helped me a lot.

And I think I did trust, like,

I suppose I didn't trust the politicians much I think

it's fair to say I think I trust the experts more

the the kind of the people that were stood up there

Is it Chris Whitty and um

van

And you know,

I think

I think perhaps at times I I did definitely struggle

with the politicians.

And then when stuff came out about,

like Party Gate and driving to Barnard Castle and all that sort of stuff,

it just felt like

there were different rules for different people,

and we weren't all in this together,

and we weren't all really experiencing the same things.

But I think

what I saw around me

was that

trust

has eroded much more than I realised. So like,

um,

I saw a lot of people

that were very anxious and didn't

I think it became very hard for people to know

who to believe, what to believe.

Obviously, some of the stuff

you know,

there's very few certainties in anything in life and medicine is no different.

But that's quite a comp, a complex thing to

get our heads around, and I think it always is it, um like personal risk,

you know, with any kind of treatment is really difficult to

really quantify and to really

like,

understand.

And I think

what I saw was a real sense that

certainly amongst like the disabled community, there was a real breakdown.

I think of trust and then

in the kind of

powers

that be kind of

but also like in wider society,

that then there was this kind of like everybody suddenly

became an expert in like viruses and had an opinion,

and

it it became a real

messy world of like,

I don't know, I feel like 50 years ago

the government had said, like,

go and get vaccinated, most people would have been like, Yeah,

the doctors are and they're saying, Get the vaccine

And now there's There's like, so much,

so many different opinions and different

voices and different like social media and

it gets really repeated. And

I think it's harder for people to know

what is the real reality

and what is like or what would be the best thing to do,

especially when it's not a black and white.

It's not a like

it's a kind of

personal risk and and, you know, and

uh,

it's hard, it's really hard.

Do you think there were

particular experiences and particular decisions that were made.

Um, that didn't, like, say, just, you know, you're a disabled person.

You, um, advocate and

are really

strong on kind of the voice of like, uh, disability. And

so were the things that were happening that

shocked you related to disability or didn't shock you. Other things.

Yeah. I mean, I think

it's coming back to me now, so I've not thought about this for a while,

like so Obviously, very early on,

there was a decision made to sort of empty hospitals into care homes.

So it and then that meant that a lot of care homes

caught covid.

It was the very early days when covid was still,

you know, fatal. For

it was the the bad version of Covid and obviously no vaccines.

And so that felt like,

um,

almost, you know, those those people living in those homes had

hadn't been valued and enough and kept safe. They hadn't been protected.

And obviously, some of that

is, you know, hindsight. Because

I'm sure the people

who sent them out of hospital didn't think. Oh, you can go. And you know

we don't care if you die and I'm sure that wasn't the thinking.

But it clearly wasn't the thinking of like, we need to protect

the people in these homes.

And I think

then there was all the stuff around.

Um,

do not resuscitate orders,

kind of being placed on a lot of disabled people or people who

it felt like,

um,

it felt scary for a lot of people because we could hear we heard of examples. Or,

um, some of the guidance early on seemed to suggest that, you know,

if somebody has lots of things wrong with them or,

um,

the actually less effort, you know, there wouldn't be

put on ventilators and stuff like that, which

seemed

to suggest that

they would sort of

if they had to.

They would make choices based on things like disability and sort of save the wealth.

The healthier person, which is just, like, seems

very

well,

just wrong on so many levels, but very scary.

And you think, Oh, you can sort of start to see how society could sort of just

sort of shift. And then

there was also early on this thing, the care act easements that, um,

were

I think were passed into law or were like were created,

but most areas didn't use them.

In the end,

um, which basically said that like social care could do away with most of the like

nice to house and just go into sort of

providing very basic support, which on one level, I sort of understand the sense of,

like, you know, if you're in a short term crisis,

there's actually some of the

the you know,

you sort of just have to do your best at the time.

But I think it was very telling that

it was only that bit of law, really, and that sort of service that got affected

and and it was like, Well, why are you

deciding not to prioritise social care

over all these other things that you could,

you know? Why not actually bring things in

to support social care rather than just decide?

Oh, well, we can do away with all of your rights and your safety net, in a sense,

because it then felt like

the little bit of protection that we had because things were

in that law that said we had to have X and Y

was just being taken away And what rights did we have and

anything could be done to us? So I think all of that meant that it just felt very

as disabled people. I think we felt a bit attacked or not valued and not protected,

Um,

in those early days and that it felt like our rights were

fair game compared to other people's rights that were perhaps being protected

and being heard more.

Yeah,

why do you think that was?

This is where my diplomacy might need to come in.

Um,

I yeah, I

there's loads of reasons. I think it's partly I think, um,

I don't want to say that.

I think you know,

most of society thinks we're disposable and don't care if we live or die.

I don't I don't think

that is.

It's as harsh as that.

I like to think it's not anyway I hope not.

But

I do think perhaps

on some level

we are not

see well,

we're certainly not seen as sort of equally important part parts of society.

I would say or valued as much in a in a way

or seen as

real people.

I think again it's a bit like with with um,

refugees or migrants or whatever these words are used,

that sort of dehumanise And people have these ideas of what we are,

and, you know,

burdens or vulnerable or people that aren't

really doing anything with their lives.

And

so what would it really matter if you know?

And

there is an undercurrent of some of that. Plus, I think as a group,

we're a bit easier targets because

we don't get heard much on the media, and we don't have really strong voices that are,

you know,

perhaps we are less.

It's less of a political risk

to not value us as much. Or we're not seeing that, you know,

perhaps people don't get as angry about

and and everybody was having challenging things, you know,

like Children's schooling.

You know, they they missed out on

loads of school.

So So it's not like we were the only group going through challenging things.

But I think

I think there's definitely not always a

Yeah, I don't I don't think, um,

we are

necessarily seen as

an important part of society

as much as we should be

and as as equally as we should be,

Yeah,

That's really profound.

Um,

and

so there's lots of talk about a post pandemic world.

What does this feeling look like to to you as a disabled person? Um,

yeah,

it's a weird one, cos I don't really know like your mum might think. Oh, we

I don't think we are in a post pandemic. Well, because the pandemic is still here.

It's just that we seem to have

I say we in the loosest possible set like the

public narrative, the politicians, the media

seem to have all decided it's over,

um,

in a way. And we're just

kind of

Whereas I think it's not over,

I think we've just got to getting to learn to live with it in the sense of

it's still here. And we've got to obviously,

you know, have boosters and

still make decisions about

what we feel safe doing.

So, like, I'm pretty much,

you know, I'm going out and about and all of that now,

And I think

it has kind of felt a bit like

some people didn't feel ready and safe to kind of re enter into the world,

but they kind of got a bit

dismissed as like, well,

It's fine now,

and I think there was enough support for those people to like an understanding,

actually that

for some individuals it was still, it still felt very risky and they didn't you know,

they weren't ready and

it was like there was suddenly a switch was flipped and it was like, Right,

that's all not ha. That's all in the past and we've moved on now

and

to this new normal over that and

apart from the fact that we still do loads of stuff on Zoom,

it does kind of feel like most things have have gone back to normal.

But they weren't a great normal anyway, So it's like

and and actually they haven't gone back to normal because,

like health care is really stretched.

So we're all facing like, longer waits for things and

still struggling to see,

you know, to get the health care that we would have got before.

Plus, there's then more people that need health care than before,

and that's kind of not really getting addressed.

And then social care is even more struggling than it was before the pandemic,

and that's not really being addressed,

and I feel like

we haven't used it as an opportunity to come out and say, like,

What do we want our society to look like?

How do we want it to be?

How can we build a more fair, equitable

society that values everyone and

take some of the good bits from the early days of the pandemic where they were like,

you know, the WhatsApp groups and the mutual aid and the

I think people have almost went

back to their like, selfish consumerism. And when

we've been through this horrible time, when actually most of those people,

realistically, you know,

a lot there were a few people that went through an awful thing, you know,

if you had a big loss,

like don't get that.

But the majority of people I know didn't have that themselves.

They maybe were Flo for a bit. And then, you know,

they had they missed a holiday or two, you know, it wasn't

their lives didn't drastically change.

But then

suddenly they got all these freedoms back and they were like, right,

we're gonna have the best summer ever and the best Christmas ever,

And we're just gonna almost go

more towards the kind of like

self-interest consumerism line.

And I think that's a shame, because I actually think

it would have been a good time to maybe have had some more

genuine discussions about.

Well, what kind of society do we want to live in?

And how can we

rebuild in a way that brings everyone together rather than

yeah, the same people who always had the kind of

better lives and easier lives?

Just have it more and the other people are left behind.

Yeah.

Gosh, I'm in a really pessimistic mood today.

You mentioned furlough. So were the things that surprised you

like. So I'm thinking about

some of the things that helped

people in society and the way that we organise certain things or were organised.

Were were there any things that really surprised you,

or were there things that didn't surprise you?

Particularly, like

maybe the approach differed for people with disabilities

and income than people that were employed or

Yeah, I'm trying to think, um

mean, there was there were some simple things like

I was on. I'm still on a legacy benefit. So

universal credit at one point, I think got increased by £20 a week.

I think that was due to covid

lost track. Everything got a bit blurred

and But they didn't do that for

legacy benefits.

I believe so. There were, like, little discrepancies there of like

and most people on those benefits disabled.

But I think

I suppose it did show that

actually, you can do anything you want as a government.

If you if you have the political will like you can step

in and help people and you can spend a lot of money.

And

when it affects everybody in society, they are prepared to do that

with the kind of furlough schemes. I think it was frustrating that

there didn't seem to be You know, me as a person on certain benefits.

I don't get a huge amount of money

and the amount of scrutiny that I, you know, I'm under

to check. I'm not like

lying about how much savings I have, or like with my direct payments that I don't,

you know, use the money for anything other than social care

is really, really high.

And yet it did seem like money was just being handed out to

the contracts and stuff

with no scrutiny, and I get that certainly very early on,

it had to be done very quickly, and they needed to do a kind of broad brush approach.

But even as time went on, they should have been able

bring in some

of those checks and balances and then go

back afterwards and where things were done badly,

hold people to account,

and that's not happened at all.

And yet

just for us to get these tiny payments that you know, we really need to, like,

be able to live our lives

with, you know,

treated like we're always trying to

to, um, steal from the system when we're not.

And that feels very unbalanced. And I suppose

now it's being used as a reason why they can't

invest in public services more and they can't put more money into things because

of covid and obviously the war in Ukraine and stuff. But actually

it's a bit of an excuse. I think

as well,

because they could if they wanted. They just have to

get the money from somewhere else, and

that's a political choice, isn't it? And and that's a bit too political. But yeah,

really important part of

your experience. So I was wondering, like, what have we learned from COVID-19?

Um, and lockdown. So if we learned anything, what have we learned?

So I

I wish we had Leinster. I feel like

I feel like the people that were already kind of

community minded and

so like,

care about other people and look out for other people. Sort of people

became more like that during Covid

and

are still like that now.

And I feel like

the other half of society

that are kind of just getting on with

their lives and don't want anything that's going to

They're only interested if it impacts them sort of people.

It kind of

push them further that way. And

so it feels more divided somehow against society. In a sense, a bit more kind of,

I don't know, I I you know, I I watched it and I,

you know,

I look at I don't know people like in Ukraine

now and or like us during the Second World War,

and and I think that's a very rose tinted view we often have in the past.

But

there was more a sense of

of the greater sacrifice

for the for the the greater CO. I

don't know what I'm trying to say for like everyone the the greater good,

I think.

And what Covid showed me

was that there are still people that think that way.

But there are a lot of people

that don't think that way now and really would not do well in a crisis or in a, you know,

in a

in a sort of difficult situation and that

people have got so comfortable in their quite

they wouldn't see them as privileged lives. But actually they are quite a

lot of them. You know, the comfortable lives

with their freedoms and with their,

you know, their luxuries and

and and sort of see those as

see those almost as rights. Now,

um and you know,

when things are taken away like they can't go on

holiday or or they couldn't go out for dinner.

But these are somehow

a loss, and there was a good reason why we couldn't do those things.

It wasn't like somebody just did it for fun

and that protecting the vulnerable

to covid not just the vulnerable but the

the people that were more vulnerable to covid

wasn't a reason enough for those people to say

yes. Actually, we should all stay in a bit more. We should wear a mask

for the greater good of all those people,

including themselves and their families.

That's a shame,

I think.

Yeah.

Really? Um, a shame. So you you touched on this idea of vulnerable?

So, like you, we often hear valuable and vulnerable.

Um, and you started to articulate that.

the language, like shielding vulnerable, like did that affect you? Like what?

What's your thinking about that?

Yeah, I don't know. Actually, um I mean, I

I don't like the word vulnerable just because it gets used

to, like, lump people into a category of the vulnerable.

And nobody is

inherently

vulnerable or not vulnerable. Like it's situation specific. It's

I mean, it's just

and you can be vulnerable in one situation, but not in another. And

we'll all be vulnerable in some to some things and lots of others.

You can be more vulnerable to something, and you could be,

you know, Yeah, definitely. If I caught covid, it would have been worse

for me as someone with lots of conditions than somebody else my age

who had no conditions I was more vulnerable to covid in that sense.

Um,

but yeah, the language, I think around sort of

the vulnerable.

It's just not It's not even correct, factually.

But it also depersonalises those people as,

and yeah, it was a weird, like label and

shielding.

I suppose it sounds like it's nice and sort of

We're doing this for your own good and protecting you,

but,

hm,

I feel like later on in the shielding process, it was more so that

finances and economy econ

economy.

I can't say that word was probably prioritised over,

the shields

in that sense.

So kind of getting the world back working and

yeah,

getting the normal back for for the majority.

And they kind of forgot about the minority. That was still

Yeah,

so So you were saying before we have you had the power cut around?

Um, a lot of emphasis on getting people back to work. And

then there was a group of, like,

you know, disabled people that were still shielding and

hm,

Yeah, kind of left behind a bit.

Yeah, I guess I

like,

I suppose this country we always prioritise like, um,

value.

I think we value the wrong things sometimes,

and and I get it like we do need people to be able to work.

And we do need an economy that

you know is.

But

I think things like well-being and health and,

like psychological well being and

quality of life for everyone is not always valued in the same way.

Mhm.

Yeah,

so I wanted,

because that is really profound. I wanted to ask you,

like what would you like

the Covid inquiry to hear about the people's people's

sickness of covid? Like what messages would you like to tell them?

I think I would. Well, I'd really like them to

really look into

why there were differences. So, like

the number of people with learning disabilities that died was higher,

people with physical disabilities was higher.

People from certain,

um, ethnic groups

was higher.

And some of that might be

for, like, medical reasons, like

but I think

have been actually the response

that it didn't

take those peop those groups needs into account properly. And I

I want the inquiry to

really

look at that and try and work out why and who

might be responsible for that and and try and learn for the future.

Those groups of then

protected in the

happens then

we don't have that inequality of like, um,

certain groups.

And

I think I'd like there to be a

maybe, just that it can stop

out like

society and that actually,

what we want our society to be like And

And I'm sorry to stop you. Your

Internet has

really gone.

I thought my video might be a

It's probably because it's all like resetting.

Is that any better? The Hear? Can you hear me any better? Yeah, sure, sure.

So can I ask that question again?

What?

The inquiry to hear about the experiences

of deaf and disabled people.

OK, Yeah, I'd like them to hear that.

Well, I'd like them to

interrogate the data That suggests that

certain groups of people were more likely to die of covid and like,

people with learning disabilities, people of certain ethnicities.

And I'd like them to

look into why,

and some of that might be medical reasons. But

some of that also may well be that the response didn't

right way.

And I suppose I want lessons to be learned from that. So that in the future

a war or whatever something happens that actually

there are already plans in place for how

themselves each time.

And then I also would like them to hear that.

Or I'd like it to be an opportunity

for a conversation about,

like, a rethink of our sort of values of society. Like, who do we value and

what type of society do we want to be? And how can we try and build that

now and protect that in, like, law and stuff? So that

so,

Yeah,

equality is more protected, I suppose, Because

I think,

Yeah,

I'm totally losing you, Anna, unfortunately,

um mm.

Let me stop, though.

But can you

say that

you have to

put yourself on mute?

Yeah.

Hang on.

What I'm doing?

If you put your computer on, mute

the computer and then call me. Is your computer mute?

Oh, um,

so I can hear an echo.

Yeah. So,

uh,

I I'll ask that question again.

Um,

so your computers,

That's right. Now.

Oh, no.

Let's, uh, unmute yourself.

Yeah, I'm on

it now,

so that seems to have solved that problem now.

It's so funny.

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Posted By

Author

streetreporter

Post date

18/04/2023