Personal Responsibility

 The last thing I want to write about now is Coronavirus.

“Stop thinking about it,” the Long Suffering Husband said, “there are other things than Covid.”

Obviously, for me, that’s impossible. Not thinking is like not breathing but he has a point because the whole thing is hurting my head. 

Up until now,  I haven't really wanted to criticise the government.  It's been a tricky thing to manage and because it was so new, who really knew what was for the best? Except, now, it's not new, is it? There has been plenty of time to collect data that allows for proper management.  Test and Trace should have it's finger firmly on the pulse of how it is being caught and the places and circumstances in which it is spreading.  The government should have had a plan across all departments and set out the priorities.

However, they are still lurching from crisis to crisis.  Yesterday, Matt Hancock made a panicky announcement that he was putting London, most of Essex and parts of Hertfordshire into tier 3, two days before the review of the tiers was to happen.  This is because cases are rising faster than they've ever risen in these areas.  He also told us that this is because our world beating research has discovered that the virus has mutated and that it is the new strain that has been discovered in many of the cases in this area.  

Tier 3 means that pubs, restaurants and theatres have to close and you can't exercise indoors with other people unless it's swimming on a Thursday with someone who is called Fred but everything else stays open.  You can still go to Lakeside and stand outside Costa with your plastic take away cups but you can't sit inside. Shopping centres will still be open but there will be less space in them because the rest stop places will be closed.  Pubs will have to pour more beer down the drain and restaurants that have spent phenomenal amounts of money trying to comply with regulations to make their premises covid secure (even though there's no such thing) have to shut. Schools, however, are being threatened with legal action by the Department of Education if they close their doors and go to remote learning.  This would all be fine if the data showed that the spread is only in pubs, restaurants and the Royal Albert Hall but if it does then they haven't shown it to us.  Most of us, who have had the illness or know someone who has are fairly certain that it is spread in schools and offices.

There is no suggestion that the Christmas week off is going to be cancelled.  The government have said to the virus, "Look mate, it's Christmas.  Take a few days off.  We understand that you couldn't for Eid or any of the Jewish celebrations that we don't understand but you can't go killing Christians at Christmas." Up to three strains of the virus can meet in one house and it will be fine.  

Instead, they have started talking about personal responsibility.

***&%***£*****$%£@~~~~***####**&%*%£

Sorry about that.

Personal responsibility!

Oh yes, because that's how this works.  

The whole point was that to defeat this virus, protect the NHS and save lives we needed to take a collective responsibility.  It wasn't enough to say, "Well, I'm young fit and healthy so I can continue to live my life as normal."  That way the virus spread through the population too quickly and the small proportion of people who needed hospitalisation or were sick enough to die, did so all at once, which overwhelmed our already fragile health services.  

Also, people aren't very good at personal responsibility.  Look at Dominic Cummings, Kay Burley and the mayor who climbed up a ladder to kiss his mistress.  Even with laws to encourage a collective responsibility people can't quite do the right thing.  

The other fact is that people are very bad at knowing if they fall into a vulnerable category. It's human nature to think that we are invincible, which is why you see eighty year olds who can barely breathe get off the bus.

I'm hoping this switch isn't just because they are too busy sitting in a room shouting about fish but is actually based on some proper empirical evidence.  

When our school closed because of several covid cases I wondered about my responsibility.  Although I hadn't been identified as a primary contact of any of those cases, I had been in the same building, shared the ladies toilet, and even talked to them at a distance, so when I woke up with the end of term stuffy nose I panicked.  Should I stay inside?  Should I get a test? What was the right thing to do?  I didn't feel ill and there was occasional sneezing.  That's not a symptom, right?  

What did I do?

I took personal responsibility and worked my way through a party tube of Twiglets.  

Can I still taste them?  Yes.  That's fine then I can walk the dog.  What about now?  Yep, great go to the post office.  Now? Fabulous, drop Christmas cards through letterboxes.  

"Have you eaten all those Twiglets?" the LSH asked.

"Not quite but I'm just testing to see if my blocked nose is Covid."

"You could just stick one up each nostril," he suggested helpfully. That’s the kind of personal responsibility I’d like to see the government take. I’m sure the Brexit negotiations couldn’t go any worse if Boris walked in with a Twiglet shoved up each nostril.