Please don’t make it a killer Christmas
THERE’S a popular franchise of ‘dystopian action thriller films’ – aka horror movies – called The Purge.
The premise is that there’s a day in which all crime, including murder, becomes legal for a 12-hour period, with, presumably, horrific consequences.
If you haven’t seen The Purge, or any of its sequels, don’t worry. There’s about to basically be a live version taking place outside all our windows.
Just because nobody wants it to be true, doesn’t mean it isn’t: the relaxing of the coronavirus restrictions for Christmas is crazy. Negligent. Dangerous.
We’re now at the point where the plain, simple truth sounds like the overdramatic hyperbole of a Hollywood film trailer. If this goes ahead, many people will die.
As of today, 99% of the country is in Tier 2 or 3 – 34 million of us in the highest level, because infections are soaring, spreading more rapidly than before, and the NHS is under immense pressure.
There’s no way changing the entire country to Tier Zero in a week’s time cannot be extremely bad news. To reiterate: many people will die. Maybe it will be someone you love. Maybe it won’t. Mince pie, anyone?
This virus loves it when we travel, and mingle, because that’s how it spreads.
Covid- 19 has, admittedly, worked really hard all year - including right down to the wire, on a scary new strain - but I still don’t think we should give it what it wants for Christmas.
The British Medical Journal and Health Service Journal agree – joining forces for only the second time in 100 years to publish a joint plea that Boris Johnson scraps these plans. Note: not reduces,
scraps. That’s the only measure that will work. Other countries around us – Germany, France, Italy – are taking decisive action, curtailing liberties again, even though they know it’s difficult for their people, because it’s best for their people.
Like how you don’t allow your kids to eat nothing but chocolate from morning to night every day. Sometimes adults need to be saved from themselves, too.
Our Government isn’t protecting us properly as that kind of leadership takes courage.
They’re worried about being unpopular, (awkward. Will you tell them or shall I?) or appearing weak ( because all that world beating macho chat was utterly convincing till now).
They’re more bothered about saving face than lives.
Personally I’d find it unbelievably strange – frightening, even – to have a normal Christmas, pretending this thing that has dominated the year suddenly doesn’t exist.
Blindly pushing ahead with travelling and mixing would also feel incredibly ungrateful, unfair, and downright insulting to NHS workers, who have been flat out since March, often living apart from their families.
In the face of their massive, relentless sacrifice, can we really be so selfish? No one’s suggesting Christmas should be cancelled. Just tweaked. It can still happen – turkey, Santa Claus, paper hats – but clearly it needs to be in our own homes, with people we live with.
The support bubble becomes a support bauble, so anyone living by themselves needn’t be alone.
We can connect with those we’re apart from in all kinds of ways, from new-fangled Zoom to old-fashioned telephone.
The ties that bond us are stronger than geography, our feelings much deeper than distance.
So it will be a different Christmas, just like it’s been a different everything in 2020. It will be a life-saving Christmas.
The alternative is too grim to contemplate. That this time next year, you might not want to celebrate Christmas at all, because you’re too broken by what – who – you have lost.
I suppose what we all have to ask ourselves is, am I really willing to take that chance? Boris Johnson and his government aren’t going to do the right thing here. Are you?
The vaccine is so close we can almost feel the needle in our arms. Let’s not blow it now. Please, please, let’s make sure this Christmas our only Purge is of Coronavirus.
If this goes ahead many will die. Maybe even someone you love