Lockdown for life?

Looking forward to going to the pub, gigs, the pictures, the theatre, a restaurant, a museum or, of course, the pub? So was I until Al ‘You Can Call Me Boris’ Johnson answered questions from the public on twitter this morning. Two vaccinated people cannot meet indoors because the “vaccines are not giving 100% protection,” said Al. “We just need to be cautious.” The future, it seems, is lockdown forever. Or we do literally everything outdoors.

A week Monday, we can all go to the pub again, although we cannot actually go inside the pub, except, I hope, for toilet breaks. It could be that the danger for going inside the pub is so severe that the pub landlord will have to provide us with a urinal bottle or a commode, or perhaps both, which us boozers can use at our tables. I’m not sure this is a sustainable plan for the long term, or even September onwards.

I suppose we can have the odd outdoor theatre evening, we can eat in a pub garden, always assuming we still have an appetite, what with all those urine bottles and commodes, but anything else probably work outdoors, especially with our changeable climate.

If that is what Al Johnson is saying today, how can tomorrow possibly be any different? What exactly be any different in August than now? The answer is nothing. In August, for example, vaccines will still not give “100% protection”. It’s unlikely they will be Christmas, nor by next year, probably never. If you’re going to cancel 2021, Al, then get it over and done with now.

For pubs, restaurants, gigs, theatres, cinemas, read holidays. I can go on holiday in the UK, but I can’t go anywhere indoors with other vaccinated people. Even if foreign travel resumes, the airport terminal and the aircraft itself will come under the category of places where “two vaccinated people (can) meet indoors”. Stay at home, if we are not careful, will become a thing for life. It feels like it is already.