Yesterday we tried a brief stroll around Carsington, mostly to get out of the house on a grey and cloudy day. The visitor centre wasn’t busy, but preparations had been made for the new normal as we slowly crawl our way out of pandemic lockdown.
The precautions being adopted are already familiar. Social distancing notices all over the place in case we haven’t heard of it, marks on the ground so we know what two metres might look like, outside café tables spaced too far apart to listen in on other conversations, takeaway menus only.
A long line of yellow footprints had been painted on the ground to indicate how people should queue for the takeaway. Nobody was queuing. The few people we saw eating and drinking had brought their own flask of tea or coffee, as we had.
None of this is a criticism of the Carsington facilities. From what we saw they had done the best they could within the lunatic restrictions and precautions imposed on them from above. And indirectly imposed on them by the shrieking, shroud-waving and wholly irresponsible mass media. And the lunatic political ethos we now seem to be drowning in. With little hope of rescue too.
We have reached a stage in the pandemic where we seem to be racing to entangle ourselves in lunatic precautions before it becomes too obvious that the risk of infection has virtually disappeared. To a good approximation I suspect that the death rate is now unknown, lost in the uncertainties of problematic diagnoses and small numbers.
Tell people about the risks and get on with normal life would probably be a far less damaging approach. Be optimistic, understand the value of optimism, embrace its risks and rewards. There are rewards - have we forgotten? Allow everyone to take responsibility for their own lives and their own safety.
The trouble is we all know why it won’t happen and that is not a comfortable insight.
8 comments:
I have no trouble topping that re precautions, this is from an email I sent to a friend after a first day back visit to the dentists.....
"My dentist appointment in the morning was even more bizarre, I arrive at the appointed time and wait in car park, nurse calls me to go in I stand on spot in front of table and am asked to use the sanitiser on my hands, then my temperature is taken and I am given hat feet covers apron and mask and told to wait until the dentist calls me in oh and after I put all the gear on sanitise my hands again.
The dentist calls me in and he says take off the mask for obvious reasons and says it is all bollox but again they have to follow rules laid down by the dentists association , health England etc.
His assistant is in full space suit mode and he does the job as normal taking his mask of to talk to me about his beloved rugby and the extra bollox of the BLM protests, when he is finished and before he starts a special mouthwash is taken and then I sanitise my hands again, wait outside the room for the receptionist in full space mode to appear with the card reader, I then have to leave by the back door but ask what do I do with the hat mask etc, and am told take home and dump they are not allowed to dispose on site, so I leave but can't get the shoe covers off so drive home in them, they may well become high fashion, very fetching.
As the dentist says all this means they cannot do anything like the number of patients they normally handle and he has no idea when routine work and check ups will start again, oh and £40 is added to my bill for the extra PPE as you say someone always makes a killing out of a crisis as all the prices as my chiropodist said have trebled at least the dentist confirmed the same.
What the hell has this and all the other governments done, donkeys led by donkeys.
I might add my phoned the doctors yesterday and in the return call from the doctor he told her that they have out of 14,000 patients not had one case of the virus but she could not have the injections she needs badly because they lower her already low immune system and she would be liable for the virus that does not exist here, you know it makes sense.
Yes, I'm now feeling sorry for those people who are attempting to save their businesses and jobs and keep services going, and who meekly comply with ridiculous practices that they see everyone else following.
Health precautions have now reached the level of folklore. In the past, magical practices and beliefs were hallowed by time; things were obviously true and efficacious because they had always been done that way. Now, they are hallowed by contemporaneous references, in that social and mass media tell us how these things are being done the world over. So they must be right.
I took the time to have a close look at this map of coronavirus fatalities -
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8413775/UKs-Covid-19-deaths-mapped-Interactive-map-shows-London-worst-hit-England.html
Assuming it is reasonably close to accurate, I checked the area where I live and there have been about 6 or 8 in a three mile radius of my house. Not exactly plague levels is it? So my first instincts in early march were right, this is a mad panic over what is a normal casualty rate from the flu. Why is it still being promoted as if it were the black death?
"Why is it still being promoted as if it were the black death?"
Could it be that the PTB, having been conned into overreaction, have found that the power trip is quite good fun? It must be more fun for pollies than admitting they were wrong . . .
Wiggia - all very depressing, although the doctor's comment about 14,000 patients and not one case of the virus is interesting. Some areas have very low numbers and must have a very low risk but still they have to follow the rules.
Sam - I'm sorry for people attempting to save their businesses too. It's almost as if there is a streak of malice behind the restrictions, an uncaring determination to gold-plate the rules and sod the consequences for real life.
Anon and Jannie - I don't understand why is it still being promoted as if it were the black death. As mentioned above I think there is uncaring malice behind it, hints of contempt for ordinary people leading ordinary lives. It is not a rational assessment of risk.
As we all know social distancing completely screws 95% of the hospitality industry(pubs, hotels,eating out,flights etc etc)
In Wuhan everybody and their dog was wearing a face mask - didn't do much bloody good did it.
Greater Tokyo with 48 million people jammed into a tiny area is still ramming them in to trains as per stock pictures - so social distancing is not taking place there, and yet Japan has remarkably few cases of Wuflu.
So we know face muzzles don't work, social distancing isn't required and yet the establishment still want to take measures that will increase unemployment by 4-5 million.
In other times it would be seen as economic sabotage.
Autumn will be interesting.
Nessimmersion - and as soon as everyone has marked out 2 metre social distancing and stuck up all the notices it will change to 1 metre.
James - especially if it doesn't come back as expected and thousands of small businesses have gone to the wall.
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