Another day, another series of rows about "lockdown".
Here's my opinion on the whole sorry mess...
I went into lockdown in early March, and I will stay there until I have been vaccinated. I am in a high risk category, and so I will not risk catching the virus and becoming a burden on my family or the already overburdened NHS.
We could have done so much better. We could have saved so many lives.
if only...
We'd locked down earlier
We'd stayed locked down
We hadn't allowed schools, colleges and universities to reopen
We had stayed away from pubs, clubs, sporting and entertainment venues and shops
We had enjoyed clearer guidance based solely on medical judgement and not coloured by political and financial considerations.
I can only speak with confidence about England, but there are factors that are quite as relevant to people living in the other great nations that make up our United Kingdom. Travel seems to me to be the most important. Why oh why did we allow hundreds of thousands of young people to travel across the country in the middle of a pandemic? Wasn’t it obvious that they would spread the disease amongst themselves? and isn’t it obvious that they will now transport it home to their families over the Christmas period, infecting their elderly, more vulnerable relatives?
And what was the imperative that drove them back to University?
The need for education? - Hardly. Many kids (especially those from well-off families) take a “gap year”, yet they still somehow manage to complete their education. Let’s be honest. It was all about money, wasn’t it. The University system is a vast moneymaking enterprise that didn’t want to miss out on a year of rich pickings, and the government facilitated them, to the cost of the Nation’s health.
Ditto pubs, clubs, sporting and entertainment venues and shops. They too should have remained firmly closed for longer. Financial considerations should have been brushed aside where public safety matters were concerned.
If only we had locked down earlier and for a few weeks longer, we would probably been almost out of the woods by now, and less people would be dead.
Nature abhors a vacuum. and in an atmosphere full of conflicting information and where sound-bites like ”bubbles”, “R numbers”, “social distancing” and the like are thrown around like confetti on a merry-go-round of lock-downs and multiple easing of restrictions, it is no surprise that some people turn to simpler conspiracy theories that allow them to justify to themselves reasons for not wearing a mask, not staying a reasonable distance apart and clamouring for the reopening of places of mass gathering.
It should be obvious to even the biggest maths dunce by now that tinkering around with partial lock-downs does not effectively stop the spread of the virus.
It’s simple. In places where there are people who are open to transmission, the virus will be transmitted. It’s what it lives for. It’s what it’s designed to do.
So let’s tough it out. Let's not let greedy businessmen force us back into danger.
My mantra would be:
Stay in. Stay focussed. Save lives.
Oh. and get yourself vaccinated at the earliest opportunity.
Stay safe. (Special thanks to my daughter Verity, whose photo accompanies this article xxx).
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