"Lockdown"! It sounds like a TV quiz show. The contestants have to answer enough questions in two minutes to dodge lockdown. Avoid it and you win a prize - perhaps a holiday in the sun or an electric lawnmower. The studio audience are instructed to clap and you leave the glare of the cameras waving like a Chinese cat in a takeaway.
See the shifty looking fellow above - that clown without his red nose. He came into our living room last night at eight o' clock and with a grim face, reading the autocue, declared that Merrie Olde England will be going back into lockdown - but not the quiz show of my imaginings. No - the grim coronavirus lockdown of last March. It's a case of déjà vu. The government's regional tiering arrangements simply have not worked. The coronavirus infection, hospitalisation and death figures have all remained stubbornly high in recent weeks.
The situation is depressing but at least this time round the prospect of effective mass vaccination is very real. Last March, nobody knew for sure that efficacious vaccines could ever be produced.
For the record, here are Britain's figures for January 4th - 58,784 new cases, 407 new deaths, 75,431 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic Chillingly, the virus is showing its ability to evolve - here in Britain, over in South Africa and in various other less well-reported locations around the world. It's like an alien invasion but the aliens remain invisible. "Take me to your leader!"
"You must be joking! He's your leader? Ha-ha-ha-ha!"....
Like so many people , all I can say is “I’m tired “
ReplyDeleteIf only we could sleep through it like Rip van Winkle.
DeleteHe looks as if he has not slept in days. I do not envy any politician their job, and even less so during times as these.
ReplyDeleteThe federal constitution of my country means that much of what regulates our day-to-day life is not decided on centrally but in each federal state's parliament. Today, Frau Merkel is meeting again with the federal state ministers to decide on what measures will be in place for at least the rest of the month. Nobody realistically expects the current lockdown to end on Jan. 11, as planned originally, but to continue at least until the 31st. As long as it remains cold and gets dark early, I don't mind the 8:00 pm curfew much; restaurants and all other places where one might like to go are shut anyway. But I do feel for those whose livelihood depends on it. Most of all, though, I am thinking of everyone working in the health and care sector. I can not even begin to imagine the pressure they are under.
Frontline hospital worker deserve medals and free holidays when this thing is finally suppressed.
DeleteAll that I read this morning is that he combed his hair before sitting down to face the nation, perhaps even he realised the seriousness of the situation. Someone put a good meme on F/B, it goes something like this. It is no use arguing that only 2% of people will die because of Covid. Take 100 jelly beans, only 2% of them will be poisoned, but would you eat any of the rest?
ReplyDeleteAmongst all the arguments, one fact rides out simply, contact is the best way of catching the virus, so be thankful for all those nurses and doctors who face this challenge daily.
The jelly baby analogy is a good way of describing the situation. As I said to Meike above - Frontline health workers will all deserved medals and free holidays when this thing is over. I think of some of the undeserving nobodies who have received honours in the past - they did nothing compared with our health workers' daily battles with this vile invader.
Delete"Stay at home but go to work".
ReplyDeleteWe do the hokey cokey and we turn around...
DeleteYou can look round houses for sale too.
DeleteI don't think the fault is with Boris. In Germany my niece has been working from home since last March. They have just extended their lockdown as cases are still rising there. My nephew works in south korea and there masks are obligatory even in the street. The reason the virus is out of control is because it is a nasty one which we still havent got the hang of. The reason cases are even worse here is because lots of crazy people are not doing the right thing or believe it is no worse than flu. Households ate mixing and people are still galavanting about thinking they are above all this. If everyone literally stayed at home for a month we could crack this.
ReplyDeleteJohnson has dithered at every critical point. That has not helped. But of course I don't blame him, I blame the sodding virus itself.
DeleteEven a good friend of mine is breaking the rules, carrying out her own risk assessment exercise to justify it, Barnard Castle style. As it happens I'm sure she is no risk to anyone but others may arrive at the wrong conclusion or simply use the Cummings excuse to do as they like.
DeleteAfter it's over, what will we have learnt from it?
ReplyDeleteI hope we will have learnt to cherish normality and social intercourse more than ever before and I fantasise that we might better appreciate the connection between this pandemic and our continuing abuse of Planet Earth.
DeleteOnline there are Trades Union blogs (Unison) such as *Public Services Need A New Normal* and *No Going Back To Normal*.
DeleteNurses, doctors, cleaners, porters, bus drivers, shop workers etc. have contracted the virus.
Children, young adults, the elderly are suffering clinical depression.
Thousands of key workers have died while looking after us.
I just heard of a 60-year-old Contact Lens optician who has Covid-19.
Two dentists I know have gone down with it.
We should be saying to Boris: *We want back what your bloody awful neo-liberal economics destroyed ... Society.*
Yes, we must have a global discussion on Earth Abuse and how to stop it.
There'll be no "going back" after this.
Delete*The Economists' Hour - How the False Prophets of Free Markets Fractured Our Society* by Binyamin Appelbaum, who writes about economics and business for The New York Times and Washington Post (2019). Now a Picador paperback.
DeleteA pleasure to read, filled with stories, revelations, insider knowledge, hidden scandals that secret government wants to keep hidden, as well as an astute grasp of political economy. Frightening.
Very little - people have such short memories.
DeleteWishy washy and prevaricating. Johnston and his government has been appalling and the figures show it. The UK needs to lock down, quarantine and trace until the virus is killed and stop people arriving from overseas unless they go into a two week quarantine and are tested, and as where our system recently failed, this must include flight staff. I don't blame anyone except for politicians focused on 'the economy'.
ReplyDeleteDon't beat about the bush Andrew - say what you think!
DeleteI do like being oblique and hinting.
DeleteAlthough it is not helpful to criticize the physical appearance of a politician I must ask the question- could Johnson's eyes be any closer together? It's so odd that the UK and USA have such bizarre blond giant babies as their leaders right now. And like John Gray- I, too, am tired of it all.
ReplyDeleteOur blonde baby is uglier than your blonde baby... but at least in Britain a prime minister is by no means as powerful as a US president. There are more boundaries, more controls.
DeleteThe virus at the present time is winning. We are not willing to defend ourselves to the point of defeating the virus. We may have vaccines but the challenge is to vaccinate people.
ReplyDeleteIt remains like a war but without the bombs and the bullets.
DeleteI wish we'd have a strict lockdown here. The virus is totally out of control, our hospitals are out of beds, people are dying left and right (as I said on my blog recently, 4 or 5 people in Florence County alone every single day!) and yet restaurants and most businesses are open just as usual. And you see plenty of unmasked arseholes any time you venture out to buy food or do something else essential. It just blows me away, how uncaring and stupid people are being! The only way they're going to do the right thing is if they're forced.
ReplyDeleteLeadership comes from the top but your president , your governor and your senators have failed to press home vital messages about COVID. To create the illusion of strength, they have kind of ignored the harsh reality of it all.
DeleteAs long as the virus doesn't mutate to become more severe. That's the real danger. Right now it's just more communicable. I wonder if the tiering system would have worked better if we hadn't also been in the midst of the Christmas holidays, when I suspect a lot of people probably violated those tiers by going to parties and meeting up with friends and relatives.
ReplyDeleteI think that the people are blamed too readily. There have been too many mistakes and critical delays at the top. Too much liberalism with regard to travel.
DeleteSo many times I've thought that it's unbelievable that the two great powers - UK and USA - have the highest numbers of the virus. Both countries boast of excellent health care but neither seems to be able to control the rampant spread of the virus.
ReplyDeleteThe medical profession risk their lives, yet still a selfish percentage of the population choose to ignore restrictions to help stem the spread.
I'm not a Boris fan, but I doubt any leader would be able to quell the epidemic now.
It's a good question CG. I look at poor countries like Malawi and Laos and wonder what the hell is going on. How come America and Britain have been so badly hit? Perhaps only history books will explain long after this pandemic is over.
DeleteSo much I can relate to from here in Australia. We have had harsh lockdowns here in Victoria. We were all given a heap of money to survive, so much so that a lot of part-time workers were considerably better off. We still had a heap of idiots sprouting conspiracies like you wouldn't believe.Now it seems here and New Zealand all of our new cases are brought in from the UK.Boris looks like he is making it up as he goes along and as for that evil man that rampages around the USA, the mind boggles.It is sad that everything revolves around money and the economy now, I fear for the future and the desert we will be forced to inhabit.
ReplyDelete