I find myself looking back on the initial period of this pandemic. What might, perhaps insensitively, be called the honeymoon phase. Certainly there was an innocence about it, ignorance even. I came too close to the orbit of cranks. Fortunately I was able to pull away in time before being locked into geostationary around bad ideas. Some were people I'd previously thought better of, but Covid is the great revealer.
Of course compared to now it was a more pleasant environment. This is January, staid and cold. March of 2020 was pleasant weather. At least the initial lockdown period, the entry into the dark pandemic world smoothed by fulsome weather. People were fresh, eager to help. The natural world was reacting by reasserting itself; fewer cars and fewer planes. Nature is the great healer. Until then the norm had been the rat race, pollution and stress. Initially, with the lockdown and despite it's disrupting upheaval, those things were eased. People couldn't work, so roads became silent, skies became clear, and people could take time out. The nice weather helped. But not right now. Maybe again.
Now people are tired. Ten months of utter mismanagement, mixed messages and denial have left us shell shocked. When this ends there will be a great reaction; forces conspiring to realign to the waking capitalist norm will be bought to bear against those born of the suffering. How can we go back to selling off the NHS after the blood spilt by those working in it? Will they, like the veterans of world war 2, want a return? That period saw the birth of the NHS and the welfare state. Our current government will be looking, first and foremost, to sacking it. They will cry crocodile tears while telling us they have little choice but to balance the books by breaking our backs. This cannot be allowed.
Communities came together, at least I'd like to think, initially. But the government breeds cynicism with terrible exemplars and rank hypocrisy. Ever the epitaph of starving kids; twice having to be bought to heel. But not by HM Opposition, but a young soccer player. There is shame to go around.
We are a long way from Spring. But the journey is inevitable. The road is paved with difficulty and death. Like a bus ride past an endless car crash. Winter is a time of great testing, but none more so than this. The sad part is that most of us saw this coming at the tail end of last year. We knew, but the government wouldn't listen. They will never listen; even more the roads are busy again, people are out (myself included). Public transport in London is heaving during rush hour. This journey is deliberately being kept in first gear because of the lack of support.
At the end of this a great vacuum threatens, caused by the exposure of our government's utter ineptitude. What threatens to fill it is down to us: either we build a better world and fight to keep the positives necessitated (at great cost) by this crisis. Or we lose everything once and for all.
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