People are always asking me – SPOILER ALERT: they aren’t really, but saying that makes me sound REALLY IMPORTANT – why I have started blogging about the Omicron variant on a daily basis. Well, it’s quite simple. A bit like me, actually. When the original virus turned up, I decided to blog about it every day but I quickly concluded that it would be a six day wonder, like all these viruses which have appeared from the east. Swine flu? Pah! Having made the mistake last time, I wasn’t going to make it again.
I’ve got mixed feelings about what’s happening this time. I can understand why experts say we need far stronger restrictions to stop the spread of Omicron but I am not oblivious to the feelings of many, many people, including family members and friends, who have absolutely had enough of masks, of nightclub vaccine passports and just generally being told what to do by a government led by people who don’t bother to follow the rules themselves.
“You stay at home, do what you’re told but in the meantime my chief advisor Dominic Cummings can drive up to Durham, my officials can get pissed up at work parties and I can host quizzes where as many as 24 people were in the same room. Oh, and although you can’t have anyone round at Christmas, my wife’s best mate stayed over last Christmas. We got round it by pretending we needed her to help with childcare.” That didn’t help, but there’s other stuff.
“Work from home, if you can,” says Johnson, which means something like a quarter of the population, who are without exception from that broad group of people known as the middle classes. So, 75% of people, including those regarded by Johnson as the great unwashed, cannot work from home. Guess who’s more likely to get ill and die? Answers on a postcard to: Al Johnson, 10 Downing Street.
At least the early data from South Africa suggests that Omicron is less likely to make you get ill or die so that’s good, or should I say less bad. The NHS, massively underfunded by the Tory austerity years, wobbles at the best of times but this winter could be something else. My fear is that even a milder variant will quickly overwhelm the NHS and we’ll all be in the shit then. A badly divided country before Covid came along is probably not the best starting point. Civil disorder? Riots? I wouldn’t be surprised. That’s what being mental can do to you. Think about something that’s bad and then imagine it being even worse.
