The Lost Season

It is sobering to realise that Summer is almost upon us, yet the year feels as if it has never really started.  Of course, we've had to give up most of Spring to Covid-19, spending the majority of it locked up in our homes, instead of being able to get out and enjoy the rebirth of nature that the season brings.  Which means, thanks to this lost season, the onset of Summer seems sudden and unexpected.  Normally at this time of year I'm beginning to plan my late Summer break, but this year I have no idea whether I'll be able to get out on the road as I normally do, whether any of the places I usually visit will be open to the public. I'm hoping to take advantage of the relaxation on the restrictions on how far you can travel to take exercise to drive a few miles out of Crapchester later this week, for a walk in the country.  Not that the onset of Summer should be used an excuse to further erode the lockdown, as increasing numbers on the right now seem to want to do.  Unfortunately, the coronavirus crisis is far from over.  I know that the government are currently trying to emphasise the positives - the falling death and infection rates - but these are only declining because of the strict lockdown measures.  Lifting it too fast will simply throw all of this away.

The fact is that a virus behaves in an entirely predictable manner: it reproduces and replicates itself.  To do this, it needs to infect suitable hosts.  Without a vaccine, the only way to stop it from reproducing is to deprive it of the vectors - which in the case of Covid-19 are human beings - it needs.  With something this virulent, the surest way of doing so is to isolate ourselves from other humans as much as possible, avoiding close contact.  Now, I'd hope that this is all obvious to everyone, that the reason for the lockdown is self-evident.  But apparently not. The number of people, primarily on the right, who seem to want to contest this logic is quite disturbing.  For them, the economic cost of lockdown outweighs the potential cost in lives of lifting it too fast, too soon.  'People have been terrorised into thinking they could die', complained one such pillock the other day, as he tried to downplay the seriousness of the situation and characterise all those government warnings as alarmism.  The fa ct is, of course, that you might die from Covid-19.  Thirty four thousand plus people have done so on the UK alone, to date.  Not all of them had underlying health conditions, either.  It is something of a lottery as to how badly the virus might affect you if you contract it. 

The reality is that if the lockdown hadn't been imposed, infection rates would have soared, health services would have been overwhelmed and the economy would have taken an even bigger and longer hit as the workforce fell ill en masse and the country ground to a halt.  Death rates would also have soared.  With the lockdown, the economy has taken a hit, but death rates have been lower.  Which is what the anti-lockdown brigade cannot or will not grasp: that economically it was a lose-lose situation.  Whatever strategy the government followed, it was gong to take a hit.  The only choice was as to how big a hit and how many lives were lost.  Sweeping away the lockdown because it is encouraging people to be lazy, (or, even if they do fear for their health, they are being irrational, it is implied), as these right wingers seem to think, will simply risk a resurgence of the virus as it more vectors become available to it, which will result in more deaths and yet another economic hit.  Obviously, I have a vested interest in keeping the lockdown in place: I'm diabetic and 25% of those in the UK who have so far died from Covid-19 have had diabetes.  But hey, I'm just being idle and/or irrational.  Ah well, rant over - it's the only way I have of getting this stuff off of my chest with the pubs closed.  Normal service to be resumed tomorrow.