The C Word 19

Good afternoon and welcome back to this afternoon's blog. Winter is well and truly approaching with the changing of the clocks less than a week away, and the darkness will descend while many of us are still at work. It is important to remember that there is light at the end of every tunnel - from the 21st December the light will remain with us for longer and longer each night until the 21st June (from happy to depressing well done Connor). I have been desperately trying to avoid this particular topic but I am at the stage where I am so confused and frustrated that I had to find someone to rant to (you lucky people). Disclaimer - this is an opinion blog and not a factual blog! I would welcome you to disagree with me and leave your thoughts in the comments (be nice though I'm a sensitive soul). So here we go then, Covid-19 are us!

The first thing I want to do is address a couple of terms which I absolutely despise of. The first of these is 'social distancing' which we have all been asked to do everyday since March. I do not agree with this. To me this implies that we should be avoiding all social contact and interaction with each other. In turn this affects the mental wellbeing of thousands of people across the country, especially the elderly or those who live alone. Instead of 'social distancing', I would prefer the term 'physical distancing' to be used. The other phrase that needs addressing is 'unprecedented times'. This one isn't here because I think it's wrong, but simply because it is the most overused and increasingly annoying phrase of the century. Everything could be deemed unprecedented so why are the MPs using it like it's going out of fashion?

Now we move onto the new tier system. I actually agree with the tier 1 and tier 3 levels of alert (did I just seriously agree with the government)! However, tier 2 is an absolute joke. You are not allowed to go into a relatives' house who you do not live with (unless you are in a social bubble), yet you can go to the pub, sit on a table by yourself and be surrounded by loads of other people you have never even met. Please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks this is crazy. Furthermore, pubs are now closing at 10pm which means people are going from a secure and controlled environment to having parties in parks and on the streets. We have all seen the videos of this happening, particularly in Liverpool. In my opinion this is causing more risk and in turn more infections.

The issue I have with constant local lockdowns is the serious effect on the economy. Now there's probably some of you screaming at me that the health of the population is far more important, and to a large extent I agree. However, it is predicted that the first national lockdown had such a damaging impact on the economy that we need 10 years of normality to recover. Any subsequent lockdown, particularly in major cities, will extend this time frame and cause disruption for generations to come. As a youngster myself (I consider 24 to be a big baby) I would like to see the government take a 'risk' now and again. People will die from this infection and that is the harsh reality that we are all facing. Countless people catch the infection every day and recover quickly or show no symptoms at all. The ones who sadly do pass away are often in the highly vulnerable category. Is it time that we play the percentage game and think about the long term struggles ahead rather than short term benefits to a minority of the population.

To round off this highly controversial piece I thought it would be fitting to give Boris Johnson and his group of merry men a school-like report. Sadly for them it reads along the lines of 'grade C must do better'. Obviously no government would ever have expected to be leading the country through a global pandemic, and they have no history to follow. However, the slowness in which he locked the country down in March and the speed that those restrictions have been lifted have been fundamental flaws that nobody can question. It seems to me that now he is trying to be proactive for the sake of being proactive. We are about to start our journey around a roundabout. Until a vaccine is found this roundabout will be the only road we know.

I will leave you with one simple thought. F word the C word.

Connor

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