Weekender 6: Human Tetris

As I write this Twitter informs me that one of the initial volunteers for a proposed Corona vaccine has...died.

I mean, that's not good. Is it!

One can't help but be British about this; possessed of nonchalant fatalism. Of course in reality it's a sad tragedy for all concerned. Not least of all the family.

No one said a vaccine would be easy. So where do we go from here?

Increasingly lockdown will become untenable. It just will be. Subject to increasing psycho-social friction people will stop complying - and that's before dealing with the conspiracy idiots who think they are being arrested. Yes this is authoritarian (did you think society previous was otherwise?), but it's not jail. That's a fatuous comparison that trivialises the special reality we are in.

Ironically it's the rubbish weather, which is set to roll in this week, that will lead me to struggle. We had a few choices days the other week. Time has become a whirlpool of days so you'll forgive me for being vague. However it would be unreasonable to expect nice weather every day. Hopefully it will stay warm, but being locked down when it's raining only heightens the tension: you doubly can't go out. We will just have to manage.

I believe we have a fortnight remaining on this extension. What the government will do is anyone's guess. I suspect they might extend it, formally speaking, but with some measure of easing. But how can that work? Social distancing is already mostly ignored/impossible. Shopping at the local tesco is like playing human Tetris. Staff isolate themselves while stocking an aisle, which is frustrating. I think they could do that differently: open an hour later and use that time to stock up. Do the same at lucnh if need be. The place opens at 7am, I hardly think that's going to inconvenience us!

There's going to be a lot different in the retail sector following this. It cannot return to normality. Consider charity shops, for example. Are they going to be able to receive donations given that they could come from an infected house, even with the best of intentions it would be impossible to test. So they would have to err on the side of Covid caution. So that's the third sector decimated; foodbanks will (and are) going to struggle likewise, though many donations are made in supermarkets. Still not ideal, but then nothing is until we can permanently and properly deal with the disease.

Places like hair salons are going to really struggle. You could post up an official certificate, for example, saying "we're clean and open for business", but customers can't make that same guarantee. Hairdressing is a very tactile affair. Are they all going to be wearing masks and gloves? They'll have to, but at what cost?

I could go on. This is a very different world we will, at some point have to, enter. A lot of people are going to struggle, and of course many are right now. If only we had leaders...