Weekender: This Isn't a Health Crisis

It seems to be that the fundamental issue in the response to this virus (not the virus and its effects per se) is one of capacity.

In other words, capitalism cannot deal with this. Cannot. Why; because capital chases profit which leads to cuts. Austerity. Countries like Italy are overwhelmed. Not because they are reporting large numbers of victims (though one is too many of course), but because their health service isn't equipped for it. Neither is ours. This is because of the capitalist ruling class. Cuts are made, privatisation creeps in. This latter serves only to exclude more from the oublic pool. Britain isn't planning to merely recquisition privte provision, but to compensate them. Unacceptable.

It didn't have to be like this. But capital demands cuts and competition to maintain profits. Now its demanding compensation - ultimately from us - to maintain the same. When the final analysis takes plaec this must not be forgotten: this is not a health crisis, it is a crisis of capitalism. Things must change.

Caveat: that isn't to say COVID19 isn't a health problem. It is. But the pandemic is a crisis of capitalism. However health issues can be dealt with. A vaccine will eventually appear but how the ruling class deals with this virus is the issue. We could have been prepared. We could have had leaders who knew what to do and weren't motivated by things other than public health. We didn't. We could have preserved upgraded and cared for the caring profession. They didn't. There must be culpability.

The weather is threatening to finally show a little spring from under the skirt. Normally this would be a celebration. But, perhaps hypocritically, I blanched and winced out on the trail, as families and their kids all had the same idea, cycling past. If this is social distancing, then god knows what coming together looks like!

If the hot weather doesn't finish off the virus (let's hope it does) then all the people out and about will finish off the rest of us. Kids off school end up playing in the park. That's as it should be, in a world free from viral worry. But kids are immortal. It's the rest of us that have the problem.

In strange futurity I will have become the old man in the neighbourhood. Shaking my withered fist like a husk of corn at the kids playing ball. As they grow up, their viral immunity built in, their offspring - those who survive the genetic mutations bred by this forced evolution, will come to know me as a terrifying urban legend. The perennial witch in the witch house; the house no one visits. Its garden overgrown and angry; battening down this brave new world.

A thing of folklore I will become half remembered urban legend whose mystery I wear like a wicker man. No one will correctly remember why until the climate alarm shouts; as it now often does. Then thy will run to the shelter of their Van Allen yurts. I will no longer care, as the sky blackens and the double glazing fails. For I have outlived the virus, if only physically. I survived the Broadband Wars. The Roboplague. The Oasis/Blur Schism. The Autotune Era. As capitalism finally dies I will survive this.

They will laugh but not understand. The alarms sound the all clear and atmosphere levels stabilise rendering sunlight safe again. This is their world now. Their memes will have to mend the sky. I'm off to watch Netflix; I have it preserved on a tablet that still requires a wifi connection. I am a relic from a time best forgotten, to be replaced by a future best ignored.

Till tomorrow, my children.