COVID-19 is a hoax, a worldwide conspiracy, created in a laboratory, less harmful than influenza, unleashed upon us by a secret group of lizards and paedophiles, a deep state. Allow the virus to take its course and shield everyone who could possibly at risk from death and allow the rest of us to get on with our lives. More than a few people believe some of the conspiracy nonsense, propagated by assorted loons and maniacs like David Icke and Piers Corbyn, but many more think it’s time to lock up everyone who is at risk from COVID-19.
I understand how the latter argument could appeal to folk who have genuinely had enough of the virus, which must surely be all of us. We see economic disaster looming, bringing with it a tsunami of job losses and business failures. Millions will suffer and a lot of lives will be ruined. In the absence of anything other than faux optimism from a clown of a prime minister, who we now know could not be trusted to run a bath, never mind an entire country, especially one reeling from a deathly virus we need hope. But what they get is hopeless.
If I had any ideas of supporting the ‘lock them up’ strategy, they soon disappeared when it occurred to me that I would be one of those forced to isolate. I’ve got some of the conditions of age, plus chronic asthma, so I would imagine Boris Johnson’s COVID marshalls would be attaching a tag to my ankles to make sure I don’t leave the house. They might even put a tattoo on my forehead so that people could report me to the COVID police is I broke my endless curfew. Because an endless curfew is what it would be.
In a scenario where society resumed normal service, except for those declared at risk, the NHS would deal with nothing but COVID-19 cases because there are millions of people with undetected underlying medical conditions and plenty more outside the so called vulnerable areas who would take a punt “getting on with life”. For those of us told to abandon ‘normal life’, who would pay for us to stay at home, potentially forever? And it is potentially forever because it is entirely possible that a full effective vaccine or treatment might never come along. This is not my normal pessimism at work; it’s reality. Nothing is certain.
Imagine the increase in the rise of cancer cases as people fail report aches and pains and other abnormal conditions? And with some ten million people already suffering poor mental health because of the virus, one can only imagine the effect on those told to stay at home and not go out until the virus had been eliminated.
I suppose you could bring in the armed forces to do door-to-door checks on anyone with high blood pressure and asthma and threaten them at gunpoint that they must not go out and warn them of the risks if they ignore the law. I suppose that would convince people to avoid a visit to Sainsbury’s, if they thought there was a risk they might end up getting killed. I suspect there will be people who rather die than live like that.
Locking up the over 60s and anyone with an ‘underlying health condition’ may sound nice as a soundbite or look good on an angry Facebook thread, but what happens when that person is you, a close family member, your best friend, your health visitor, your doctor, your food delivery driver or your pub landlord? On the basis of a back of a fag packet calculation – and it’s my fictional fag packet, so this calculation little more than wild guesswork – maybe 20 million people would be confined to barracks, a third of the UK population. I mean, try it if you must, but I can imagine a few issues trying to get everyone to comply. I suppose with an increasingly centralised and authoritarian government like ours, you can’t rule anything out.
We certainly need to look after the vulnerable, especially if one of their number is me, but locking us all up so everyone else can carry on as ‘normal’? I’ve got more than a few doubts about that but I wouldn’t rule anything with a megalomaniac and eugenicist like Dominic Cummings running the country.
Whilst it’s true that COVID-19 is more of a threat to the old and vulnerable, that’s not the full story. All of us have a duty to our fellow citizens to take measures to protect each other – don’t forget that the wearing of masks is to protect others, not ourselves – but taking away the freedoms from a third of the public would be a step, a leap, even, too far.
There is no conspiracy about this virus. Science quickly worked out the genomic sequence which is the basis of the hundreds of vaccine projects all over the world. It’s not a hoax, it’s not a conspiracy, it’s not man made, it’s not less harmful than influenza, it’s not been unleashed upon us by a secret group of lizards and paedophiles or a deep state. It’s a virus that has killed over a million people and had adverse effects on millions more. And locking up millions of people until an effective vaccine or treatment can be found surely can’t be the answer, especially if you are, or know, someone who would face imprisonment at home.
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