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LONDON (AP) – For nine months Gordon Bonner has been in the ‘hinterland of despair and desolation’ after losing his 63-year-old wife to the coronavirus pandemic that claimed the lives of more than 100 000 people in the UK.
It wasn’t until recently that Bonner thought he might be able to move on – after feeling the spirit of his wife, Muriel, close to him for what would have been her 84th birthday.
“I suddenly understood that I had to change my attitude, that memories are not chains, they are garlands and you have to wear them like garlands around your shoulders and use them to communicate between the rapids and the dead. “said the retired army major in an interview from his home in the northern city of Leeds. “Grief is the price we pay for love.”
Bonner, 86, is just one of hundreds of thousands of Britons suffering from grief over the pandemic. With more than 2 million dead worldwide, people around the world mourn their loved ones, but the UK’s toll is particularly heavy: it is the smallest country to cross the 100,000 mark.
While Wuhan, Bergamo or New York may be more associated with the pandemic, the UK has one of the highest death rates relative to its population. For comparison, the United States, with five times the British population, has four times as many deaths. Experts say virus counts, in general, are undercounted due to the limited number of tests and missed cases, especially at the onset of the pandemic.
Along with the excess deaths, there is excessive grief, made even more acute by the social distancing measures in place to slow the spread of the virus.
“There is going to be a tsunami of grief and mental health issues this year, next year, going on, due to the complications, because of course people couldn’t have the usual rituals,” said Linda Magistris, Founder of The Good Grief Trust, which brings together bereavement services in the UK under one roof.
Bonner understands the need for restrictions, but it hasn’t helped matters.
Six weeks after being barred from coming to Muriel’s nursing home due to lockdown restrictions and 10 days after his COVID-19 diagnosis, Bonner was summoned to hospital and, “dressed like an astronaut,” he testified to the finale of his wife. distressing moments.
“She was working so hard to breathe, her lips were pursed like she was sucking a straw,” he said. “I can see his face now with his lips in that position and it was devastating and it hit me to the side.
It was the last time he saw Muriel, and the image haunts him. And in what he called a “bad turn of history,” Bonner was unable to replace that memory because his wife’s body was seen as an “active coronavirus reservoir.” He couldn’t even get her dressed as he wanted for her cremation. Hugs with friends and family – well, they are not advised.
These rituals help people cope, a task made more difficult now because there is no escape from the scale of death in the UK – beyond the annual average of around 600,000 – from the regular sound of ambulance sirens to the alarming headlines of news bulletins.
“The backdrop of death, grief, around creates a pretty caustic backdrop,” said Andy Langford, clinical director at Cruse, a leading charity for the bereaved.
Many people left behind don’t know where to look for help, in part because they are navigating the grieving process at a time when local health services are not functioning normally.
Bereavement charities stepped in, tailoring online support groups, which could attract those who would otherwise have hesitated to seek help in the pre-COVID-19 world.
But resources are depleted, especially when the country regularly records more than 1,000 deaths per day. The government is urged to provide additional funding to strengthen helplines, counseling services and other community support programs.
“It’s really important not to pathologize grief as an indicator of mental health problems, but a large proportion of people will also need support,” said Dr. Charley Baker, associate professor of mental health at the University of Nottingham.
Many will not need any outside support or minimal outside support. But there are fears that part of the grief may be repressed: that people subconsciously protect themselves from its full impact and end up being hit hard as the pandemic gets under control.
“I think it will be strange because it will be a really positive thing when things can hopefully return to a certain degree of normalcy, but I think it would also be a very difficult time because we were all a bit frozen. over time, ”said Jo Goodman, who lost her father Stuart, 72, last April, just days after testing positive for the virus.
Months after his father’s death, Goodman, 32, co-founded the COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group to pressure the government to support a public inquiry into how the pandemic was handled in the spring latest.
“We cannot normalize the fact that hundreds and hundreds of people die every day and know what their families are going through,” Goodman said.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said an investigation will take place – but only after the crisis. But already critics claim the government has repeated the mistakes it made in the spring in the current resurgence, like locking the country too late. The UK is also grappling with a new, more contagious variant that may carry a higher risk of death than the original strain..
Bonner, meanwhile, is hoping the country will take the time to mourn properly and consider sending a letter to Johnson, who has yet to support a national commemoration for virus victims, to suggest a “concurrent memorial service. for those of us who have lost people to COVID may go somewhere to seek solace.
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Follow the AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak.
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