Notes from the Pandemic

Notes from the Pandemic

The lack of preparedness for Covid19 by most western governments, which sometimes seems almost deliberate and perhaps a result of the peculiar plan exemplified by the UK to gain 'herd immunity' for the population, is a terrible thing, since all delayed response leads directly to a greater number of deaths, especially among the most vulnerable, and it isn't the case that these problems and solutions were known only at the last minute.

I suppose expecting criticism on this, some answers have already been offered in the media concerning this lackadaisical approach: it is owing to the fact, apparently, that we have a 'free society' and cannot simply make everyone behave. 

This is certainly not true, in fact every democratic government can enact emergency laws and could enforce social distancing and self isolation, they can also tell industry to cease and what to produce. We have all seen only recently the riot cops on the streets in France enforcing things violently. This can of course be done in the US too. Peculiar that when people need protection from a strong state, the strong state is suddenly a flower petal.

Which leads me to think that perhaps the idea is to make a clear distinction between the way the western democracies approach this crisis and, say, China, which is regarded as 'authoritarian' by them. But the suspicion is that our establishment is simply  unenthusiastic about losing its profits from business, and government is scared to take the necessary measures for fear of upsetting them. At the same time, thankfully, quite a few actual capitalist 'captains of industry', in conjunction with union leaders, are acting more responsibly than our governments, and have taken things into their own hands and duly shut down their industries. This leaves the impression of rudderless leadership, or a leadership that simply does not want these responsibilities. Certainly Boris Johnson seemed most unready, not attending emergency meetings, going to mass sports events, shaking hands all over, and then as a result, unsurprisingly, he even got the disease himself.

But another problem that exists alongside these is the continued propaganda that the virus is not a very serious matter. For whatever reason, this is an angle that is being promoted in a lot of the global media, which nowadays promotes ending the lockdowns, before we have any cures, and in that lovely 'balanced' way shows us the protests for 'freedom'. President Donald Trump has downplayed the crisis and still does so occasionally, and has supported this 'freedom' too, sought by what looks like mostly a lot of cranks. He seems sad and angry that he has to deal with this crisis, to him it is like a personal attack, bad for his reelection. 

But the serious side of these protests is all those businesses that really do face ruin, those which took people hard work and creativity to build up, are they getting social assistance? They have a point moaning, a lot of the lockdown rules seem just for punishment rather than to make actual sense in the pandemic. The state is not being bothered to do it right, it just wants to impose, or makes hypocritical decisions, like cramming people on the metro to go to work, but stopping and fining lone walkers up in the mountains, away from everyone.

In the UK we have had clapping of our health service, the NHS, which is great, but seems also strange while around 600 a day are dying, and what about their relatives feelings? The UK media seems to shy away from the dead, they are mainly a statistic, otherwise the gravity of the situation is lacking or too much for them. Contrast this to reports on a past terrorist attack and its dead. In comparison the pandemic is drained of emotion. All that's left is the mawkishness. The UK has a very strange, if you think about it, set of slogans: Stay at Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives. The National Health Service is supposed to protect the health of the people of the UK, but this has been reversed and we need to protect it. After years of cuts to the NHS and austerity policy, this is really the government telling us to protect the Conservative Party in the pandemic from bad statistics.

This seems to be a symptom of the general malaise, the general lack of preparedness and sheer wishful thinking that has prevailed over the last couple of months.

Our personal situation is, being English and living in France, we are still not sure if we can get any state help, so we have worries about basic things like getting enough food in the future as well as catching the virus. Obviously we should not leave our home, which of course is a welcome measure to avoid contact, but our village post office is closed and so access to dealing with money is difficult. Borders have been closed so we cannot travel to England if we needed to. We are all living through historic times and most of us face hardships, some a lot worse than these of course. We are beginning to wish we had kept up with the chickens and we are trying to grow vegetables, which we are not very good at. You worry about your relatives elsewhere.

But I write and I'm used to sitting on me bum at home tapping away on my computer. Things haven't changed that much materially for me I guess. I know isolation, it is even my friend. Just that, every now and then I get a slight panicky feeling, everything has changed, it is a kind of vertigo. 

I hear, because of shortages of Personal Protective Equipment, NHS nurses are being made to use various items they can find – including bin bags – in the hospital to help protect themselves, with many using plastic aprons over their head, buying wellies or wrapping clinical waste bags around their feet. This is a modern society, great efficient western capitalism, and we are dying in thousands.