Prior to the relaxation of rules at Christmas, the family had been shielding since March
Four members of the same Derbyshire family have died after they stopped shielding over Christmas to meet up, following Boris Johnson’s decision to relax coronavirus guidelines for one day.
Tracy Latham, whose partner Darren, his parents and one other relative passed away from Covid-19 after meeting on Christmas Day, said that she feels the prime minister has “blood on his hands”.
Despite this, she has also stated that her family knew the risk they were taking when they met.
Darren, Tracy told DerbyshireLive, went to his parents house for a few hours on Christmas Day. While there, Darren, his parents and a number of other family members contracted the virus.
Darren, his parents Pat and David Fisher, aged 79 and 82, and one other family member, who was in his 70s, caught the virus within a week, and have all since passed away.
Speaking to her local paper, Tracy said she was unsure exactly who passed the virus on during what she described as a “flying visit”.
“We don’t really know who passed it on,” she said. “Darren popped in to them for a couple of hours to say hi, as they hadn’t seen each other for ages. It was a quick flying visit at around 9pm.”
A day later. Darren’s mother fell and hurt her leg, leading to a hospital stay. She then tested positive for Covid-19 only days after beginning her hospital stay, meaning she didn’t contract the disease in her ward.
“She began to feel tired and rundown,” Tracey added. “A few days later, she tested positive for coronavirus as her condition got worse.”
Shortly afterwards, Darren began to develop symptoms, before being moved to hospital, where his condition deteriorated. He passed away on January 11th.
“I told him to get himself right, and those were the last words I said to him.
“He was on the ventilator for nine days.”
Tracy and Darren had been together for 12 years, and had been due to marry in the summer.
She has said that while her family knew the risks involved, they had all assumed they were safe due to the fact that they had been shielding for months, and she laments the prime minister’s decision to allow Christmas mixing of households.
“I wish that Boris had said nobody could visit each other at Christmas,” she said.
“Then to stand up and say I’m sorry for all those lives that have been lost, he hasn’t got a clue.
“The government hasn’t done enough – the lockdown was too little too late. I believe they’ve got blood on their hands and no amount of standing there is going to change it.”
