The Road To Spring 22: Nearly There

The sun is out. Somewhat bashful, slightly obscured by crowds - there are a lot of people with the same idea, walking outside while it's still nice. The forecast is hopeful, weather that will be reflected in the grasping aspirations of our PM later remains to be seen. It's easy to want everything open, it's also foolish.

For now the virus seems to be threatening mood music. Omnipresent. It isn't quite suppressed to allow Boris and his clown cronies their sunlit upland. Their parole. But he will make a good fist of it, which means he will make a mess of it. 

The problem is, as long as the virus remains in the community to any real degree it will surge again. It doesn't care about economics, personal feelings, or the desires of confused politicians. It certainly doesn't care about children nor their education. This is why zero covid is the only strategy and, as sure as the sun on my shoulder (and part of my screen) is my witness, I do not believe Boris intends to follow it. Nothing else will work; at best we can open a few things. At worst we will open too much, sooner or later, and I'll see you here for lockdown number 4....5....6.... you get the picture.

It isn't difficult to understand this. Without suppressing the virus sufficiently, tracking and tracing cannot work. Without tracking and tracing we cannot possibly keep a lid on future outbreaks. And there will be future outbreaks; covid is in the world. It's not going to leave for a long time. It will take a global effort to fully eradicate it. That requires successful worldwide freely available vaccination technology. It takes years to eradicate diseases, never mind those that are highly transmissible. Ebola, frightening and deadly, isn't a threat like this because it's too deadly, killing before it spreads. While we are in covid's grip it will mutate and spread its misbegotten children. Another reason for zero covid. We can't let it evolve against our vaccines. 

So the situation is quite serious, actually. It isn't merely an inconvenience for swivel eyed Tories, liek tiny faced pub simpleton, Tim Martin, or any of the backbench cranks in the 'Covid Recovery Group' (an excuse to leech more expenses, just like the 'European Research Group'). It is fundamentally an ongoing cycle of increasing despair. We cannot continue the cycle of lockdowns, but there is only one solution. Unfortunately it's not one the Tories like.