The Adventure of the Second Lockdown

I've spent far too much time over the last twenty-four hours considering possible names for the sequel to lockdown. Lockdown- The Revenge? Lockdown 2: Electric Boogaloo? Lockdown 2: Judgement Day? Lockdown with a Vengeance? 2 Lockdown 2 Furious? Honestly, there's plenty more where those came from. 

The point is, here in England we're going into lockdown once again. I think most sensible people understand that it's a necessity (we've all seen the graphs with the edges cut off the screen) but it's still not something any of us really want. 

This image has been very useful this year

The feeling is that the government could have handled things better. Over the summer they encouraged people to 'eat out to help out', a scheme which this week was shown to cause an increase in Covid cases. Then they started telling people to go back to work before realising this was also not a good idea and making a U-turn, a regular occurrence this year. 

The biggest point of contention is that the scientists were advising that we should have a short 'circuit-breaker' lockdown over three weeks ago. We could have had half term and another week and then carried on with our lives, the number of cases back to a more manageable level. But no, Boris stubbornly refused to make a sensible decision and happily allowed the number of cases to rise exponentially until we reached the point we'd need a whole month, possibly longer, stuck at home. He couldn't even turn up on time to give the press conference, eventually turning up at 6:45 despite originally saying it would be 4PM. 

One of the government's main defences to try and convince people that they are not incompetent is that Belgium, France and Germany have also announced new lockdowns recently. But we have a big difference- whilst they have multiple borders allowing people to move the virus casually around the continent, we are an island. We should have been doing so much better at preventing it from entering. Look at other island nations- Australia announced they have reached zero new cases and New Zealand have managed things so well they are virtually living in a post-covid environment. Oh, to be in New Zealand with no Covid and such a lack of political divide that the prime minister was re-elected in a landslide victory. 

There are major differences this time around, the biggest being that schools will not be closing. I wrote a few weeks back about how disastrous closing schools again would be for students so I'm pleased the government had some sense in that regard. There's an element of conflict in my mind about that approach though- surely a lockdown isn't going to work so well if the schools are open to allow students to transmit the virus between relatives and staff. 

I also still find the whole concept of covid an abstract one. Whilst I've heard examples of cases there's no-one I whose name I know that has actually had covid. Here in the South, the number of cases has always been relatively low. It also occurs to me that the few examples I had heard have involved people not following the rules in some way. If you socially distance, wear a mask and wash your hands regularly it should be pretty difficult to catch the virus let alone spread it to others. I totally understand that the rules feel restricting but the more strictly the population follow them in the short term the less important they become in the long term. 

As much as the concept of a second lockdown is unpleasant, I've concluded that it probably won't make a great deal of difference to me given that schools will remain open. We've been following quite strict covid guidelines for months so I can't see that anything significantly will change in that regard and I'll still be able to go out for walks. The one major irritant is that it will almost certainly mean moving into my new flat will be delayed which is extremely frustrating and I'm trying to tell myself that I can wait a little longer. 

2020 continues to be a truly awful year and I feel that there's a feeling going to be a long and miserable winter ahead. On the horizon, though there's a glimmer of hope- in two months the days will start getting longer again and we're hopeful for a vaccine in the first quarter of 2021, which can surely only be a better year for us all.