UNCERTAINTY, NHS last rites and life on the frontline for an EU migrant nurse were the topics raised by columnists and contributors in the newspapers.

The Daily Mail

Sarah Vine said January was always going to be the hardest month in the pandemic and so it transpired on Tuesday when the highest death toll was recorded.

“Covid has us adrift in a sea of uncertainty, never knowing which way the tide will turn or what fresh wave will come crashing down,” she said. “Even those who, in theory, do know what’s going on can’t be sure, since they, too, never know what horror is just around the corner. The uncertainty taunts us, and it’s driving everyone slowly crazy.”

She said we had exhausted every avenue of so-called Blitz spirit and asked how we would cope when everyone over 75 was safe and the rest of us are still locked down.

“What’s stressing everyone out is the fact the end seems so near, yet still so far,” she said. “The vaccine tempts us with a dream of freedom, yet the death toll is grimmer than ever.”

The Daily Express

Ann Widdecombe said the NHS was coping with Covid at a price - abandoning large numbers of cancer patients.

“It is a simple fact that the NHS was founded on three completely false premises,” she argued. “The first was that as we all got healthier demand Nor did the founding fathers of the NHS foresee the huge rise in longevity.”

Thirdly, she said, it was expected that National Insurance would make a large contribution to its costs but it falls on general taxation.

“The biggest obstacle to a mature debate is that we have confused the means with the end. The end was that nobody should be denied health because of inability to pay and the means a service free at the point of reception regardless of income. By making a sacred cow of the latter we have betrayed the former.”

The Guardian

An anonymous nurse working in intensive care said it was impossible to know how many people had died in ITU because capacity had increased from 30 beds to 80.

“Sometimes we come in to find a bed empty, and I don’t know if it’s because we’ve succeeded or we’ve failed,” they said.”Each ITU patient should have one nurse, giving them one-to-one care; but at present one nurse is caring for three or four.”

They said it was frustrating to see people claim the virus is a hoax when ‘you’re trying to keep brains, hearts and lungs oxygenated.’

“I’m an EU migrant, like a vast number of people working in intensive care. Many of us were working when the law changed, and we went from being residents to being guests with settled status. When all this is over, I hope there is an acknowledgement that we didn’t leave this country; we didn’t leave our posts, even when it felt like Britain abandoned us.