Pessimist

 Normally, a glass half full person, this morning I’ve woken with a general sense of foreboding. It might be because thunderstorms give me headaches but I think it’s because of the Chesham and Amersham by election, Covid and how much there is to fit in before the end of the school year.

We are in a very odd phase with this disease. We are going to have to live with it but until a few more adults are fully vaccinated it could still overwhelm the already overwhelmed hospitals. Because the delta variant is on the rise, we are not dropping the test, isolate and trace system.This system is really only useful if you are trying to control and eliminate a new disease and the government have already decided not to bother with that but yet they persist with this TIT policy. Whole schools are being closed down because one kid has hay fever and tests positive for Covid-19. 

The public are furious with the government for taking away the promised freedom day, so much so that the by election caused a 25% swing away from the conservatives in a safe seat that they have held, since they invented it 47 years ago and have always won with more than a 10,000 majority.

Boris won’t like that.

Will it make him do the right thing?

That’s where my sense of foreboding comes in. He will change his mind. Obviously. It would be political suicide not to, in his mind. Knee jerking his way through all major decisions, he will bring the date forward to before schools have finished but he won’t remove the TIT policy. People who test positive will still have to isolate. A few individuals with the loss of their personal freedoms is more manageable.

Unfortunately, it will be school kids that will suffer. With more unlocking, the cases will rise further. Kids in school will catch it because most of the adults will have vaccine immunity. Kids might not be very ill but the positive test will cause them and their whole class to get a 10 days in jail notice. Do not pass go, do not collect £200, do not finish school.

Sorry. That’s so pessimistic.

Normally, I’d be really positive. The public realising  that this government is useless is a good thing. I wanted the freedom day, I think if it’s in society then we have to stop testing and only worry about people who get really sick. People (including medics) need to be taught what symptoms should be warning flags, so that timely help can be given, to save lives, just as we do with stroke. It could be a good opportunity to save the lives of asthmatics, who regularly die because no one recognises the signs of low oxygen and poor lung function. It would be nice if we went back to a world where people aren’t expected to carry on through every illness and are actually encouraged to take time off to recover and not spread their germs about. However, I just think the likelihood of making it to the end of term without having to isolate is looking less likely.