Weekender XIV: Status Report

And so, normality?

Not quite. The shadow remains. Everything seems to appear right. The shops are, somewhat, open. Some of them. The buses are running, but half empty. We're almost there, back through the looking glass into the world that was.

Not quite.

I feel it keener than ever now. If I'm not alone in this - and not in that "pro business" Tory bullshit way either, safety first obviously - then the centre cannot hold. Something has to give. Will we habg on in quiet desperation? That is, to further quote Pink Floyd, the English way.

I fear we will be living with Covid one way or another for a very long time. That's not a whlly original statement, of course, but it is the truth. Does this mean we're in for a second spike? It's entirely possible. My feeling is that, if that happens, it won't be until the weather turns cold again. Then it will compete for our lungs with the usual winter bugs, including seasonal flu. God only knows how that would diabolically synergise!

Are we sleepwalking into that scenario? Are we laying the groundwork for it now by opening everything up? Already they are almost certainly going to cut social distancing to a level where it functionally no longer exists. 1m isn't social distancing, it's just social. Then what? How do we put the genetic genie back in the bottle if we have to lockdown for a second time?

The other scenario, IMO, is that it will just remain, kept in the background by the efforts of political suppression. Let a few people die - wasn't that always the Tories plan? Hope that some form of herd immunity appears, which will do us no good when the people the herd are meant to be protecting will have died in the process. Life will drag on as it has but in the background a terrible static, broadcast in the media, telling us the daily death toll. The antiloxxer lunatics will dismiss that, in their fascist eugenics fashion, as 'normal'. People die every day they say, so it's OK if we just let people die. They were going to die anyway, so what does it matter to rob them of their last breath undignified?

This is the callous way our society has gone. Profit turns otherwise rationally minded people, those using science to justify their anti lockdown narrative, into the heartless. Nothing seems to challenge them, other than projecting fear onto others. They tell me I should "flatten the fear" (as opposed to the curve) oblivious to the effects of a rampant virus unchecked on an economy. BE SCARED ABOUT ECONOMIC ARMAGEDDON AND MENTAL HEALTH BREAKDOWN! They cry while telling me not to be frightened of a virus they misrepresent about which practical steps can be taken.

No pandemic is an excuse to turn into a Nazi.