Wave goodbye to lockdown woe
RFORMER England star striker Peter Crouch says wife Abbey Clancy is so house-proud she tries to tidy their kids’ playroom with the kids still in it. That’s a bit like Canute trying to turn back the tide. But he also mentions the fact she won Strictly. Is it just me, or does everyone almost immediately forget who’s won Strictly (let alone who was just on it)? We’ve watched every series but I have zero memory of Abbey taking part.
Has the Queen done it?
RTHIS. Is. Getting. RIDICULOUS. Government dithering on getting us out of lockdown isn’t just unfathomable: given what we now know about Covid-19, it’s inexcusable. It’s as if back in 1945 the authorities had insisted on the continuation of the blackout after VE day, “just in case”.
When coronavirus arrived in Britain we knew almost nothing about it except that it would likely spread very quickly and kill people along the way.That was about it. Lockdown made complete sense while we bought time to work things out.
And we have worked them out. Compare the fearful, flailing ignorance of early March to the infinitely better-informed days of late May. It’s glaringly obvious now that corona is not a random killer. It targets highly specific groups. Public Health England said so this week, confirming that (as we’d all begun to realise) those with heart disease, diabetes, dementia, and the obese are in the bug’s cross-hairs. So are those aged 80 or above; 70 times more likely to die after catching Covid-19 as are people under 40. And people from BAME backgrounds are twice as likely to die from it as are white people.
Terrible, if you’re in one of those at-risk groups. But the plain fact is that the rest – the vast majority – infected with coronavirus either don’t know they’ve had it, or report minor to moderate symptoms. A tiny minority fall seriously ill, and
JWE’VE been watching welcome re-runs of Foyle’s War, Anthony Horowitz’s TV series about a police detective solving crime in Hastings in the Second World War.
Michael Kitchen’s grave Inspector Foyle (right), the embodiment of decency and intelligence, investigates murders in the context of the vast sufferings of the drama of war. It’s perfect lockdown viewing.
Watching the courage of the young RAF pilots in their early 20s, as they soar away in their Spitfires, so many never to return, helps briefly to put our present troubles in perspective. a tinier minority of those, die.As I wrote here many weeks ago: bubonic plague this is not.
Lockdown was meant to ringfence the NHS and protect it from being overwhelmed. Mission overwhelmingly accomplished. So if the virus is NOT an equal threat to everyone, why are we still behaving as if it is? And why are we still fearful of the so-called “second wave” or “peak” of infections?
Professor Hugh Pennington had something to say about that too, this week. Pennington is emeritus professor of bacteriology at the University of Aberdeen. He was mentored at the start of his virological career by June Almeida, who actually discovered human coronaviruses. So the guy knows his stuff.
He’s a convinced second-wave sceptic. Pennington says the concept of a second wave comes almost
Rentirely from the infamous 1918 “double whammy” Spanish flu pandemic. But the professor says flu is very different from Covid-19; in fact we now know the two viruses barely resemble each other and do not spread in the same way at all.
As evidence, he points to the fact there have been no flu-like second waves in China or other countries. “That the virus will persist for ages is a flu concept. It’s wrong. It must be put to one side,” he says.
Meanwhile Neil Ferguson, the scientist behind lockdown in the UK, this week admitted that Sweden has achieved roughly the same suppression of coronavirus but without any draconian restrictions.
The war’s over, bar shouting.We need to lift the blackout, get back to work and return to normal, pronto, before the country goes bust. Because thatWILL affect every single one of us.
I DOUBT if the midnight revellers camped out during recent balmy nights on the heath opposite our house will be reading this. Based on their behaviour, I doubt they can read at all. Most mornings we and our neighbours have opened our front doors to the sight of piles of beer cans, empty pizza boxes, soiled toilet paper (and worse) gently swirling in the breeze. Why can’t these people take their rubbish home with them? It brings a whole new meaning to “we’re all in this together”. We sure are, around here – in it up to our ruddy knees.