People are continuing to whinge about the extension to the lockdown the government has just announced.
I also note that although many have wised up, and are expressing the same concern I have had since all this started, many haven’t.
My concern is this: precisely what happens when the lockdown is lifted?
You see, I am a carer for my elderly parents, and both of them have COPD. There is no way on this Earth I am going to go back to work while the virus is still circulating out there to such an extent that me becoming infected is a significant possibility.
I don’t care about me – I’d probably survive. I care about my parents (and other people’s, come to that).
They could lift the lockdown tomorrow, but I would certainly not begin lessons again. And right now, the same will still be true if they lift it in May. Or June. And probably July. However, if people could, for once, look beyond their own financial concerns, they would see that this lockdown provides an alternative way out while a vaccine is developed.
If the current infection burns itself out – which the lockdown is likely to help achieve if people do as they’re f***ing told and stay inside – it is no longer actively circulating. That means there is much less chance of catching it. Of course, it also depends heavily on the idiots in Westminster doing something to stop it being ferried in again once any lockdown is eased – little things like testing to see if people coming in have actually got it before even being allowed out of Customs – but it is possible.
I would certainly be prepared to start teaching again if I knew with reasonable certainty that infections were not increasing and were very, very low numerically. But while there are over 1,000 active cases and rising in Nottingham, there’s absolutely no chance.
Remember: abiding by the lockdown means there is a way out of it sooner. Behaving selfishly means there isn’t.
Also remember that it doesn’t matter what other countries are doing. Just because Denmark or Spain is lifting restrictions doesn’t mean we are either going to or, indeed, should. Not yet, that’s for sure. Isolation does significantly reduce COVID-19 spread. Are people really so stupid that they put money above all else, and form their opinions on such information as this? It isn’t a stupid game – science is involved. While COVID-19 is spreading and killing people in the UK, what Denmark is doing is f***ing irrelevant.
If I knew that going back to work would kill just one person out there, I wouldn’t do it. A frightening number of instructors (and people in other jobs) apparently would.