Public Health Officials and governments are worried. The rise in cases does appear to be significant and not just a recording error. This wasn’t meant to happen. What went wrong? It has to be someone’s fault!
I hate this kind of thinking. I’m against blaming even governments and actual decision makers because I believe that they are trying their best. They might be stupid or misguided but no one does something intentionally that they know will make things worse. Okay! I know you are shouting ‘serial killers’ at me now and I’m being overly kind to evil people but I honestly think their motivation is always to make things better for themselves. Sometimes it hard for people (and governments) to see the bigger picture.
The current rise in cases is being blamed on ‘young people’. The local director of public health was interviewed by our local newspaper yesterday.
https://www.facebook.com/essexlivenews/videos/1317546381962382/
He was very good: clear, calm and mostly kind. He was certain that the virus was going to take hold again and kill lots of people. He said that the reason the hospitalisation and death rates aren’t rising is because the cases are in young people. He blamed the ‘hospitality industry’. He said that the first lot of cases we had were from schools, where people came back from skiing holidays, then he says there was a spike where it travelled around care homes. He didn’t appear to agree with the government that schools were safe but did concede that here was a reluctance to close schools because education is so important. He answered questions I thought he wouldn’t. He suggested that if young people were going to live their lives normally (and why shouldn’t they?) they might like to think about not visiting their elderly grandparents (which seems sensible). He appeared just as confused as the rest of us on the guidelines for having another household in your home. I, and the journalist, thought you still had to socially distance, but he seemed to think that wasn’t necessary.
At the beginning of the interview he said that clear messaging that was going to keep us safe. His message was to get a test if you feel unwell and self isolate, so you don’t infect anyone else. That seems simple enough, right?
Except that many people are asymptomatic. Is feeling a ‘bit off’, which he said a third of a symptomatic people said after they tested positive, enough to warrant a test? I ask because, like most people, I feel a ‘bit off’ most mornings.
The government insist that they are handling this pandemic well. They are ‘world beating’! Therefore, when things go wrong it is our fault for not following the guidelines properly.
I noticed that on an article about a school that had to close because five teachers tested positive someone had commented that it will have been because the teachers weren’t following the guidelines in their personal life and would therefore face disciplinary action. I found this horrifying. So, if a teacher tests positive and has left the house for any reason other than to go to work they can be disciplined? That is no way to live.
By the evening the government had latched onto the idea that it was all the fault of young people and had come up with a new zippy slogan (their version of clear messaging).
DON’T KILL GRANNY!
Now, this is just evil. This is just what we need. A generation of young people blaming themselves for the death of their elderly grandparents! Sorry. I mean grandmothers because you can kill as many grandfathers as you like.
The truth is that none of us know how we catch bugs and when we do it’s not our fault. If we all try our best to socially distance, wash our hands and stay at home if we are ill then this thing might not kill our elderly people but if it does then it’s not our fault.
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