In anticipation of this year’s summer holiday being cancelled, we decided to book next year’s. This was despite Croatia, our destination of choice for 2021, about to go onto the government’s ‘green’ list of countries. The burst of optimism I felt, thinking that we WOULD be going abroad this year after all, turned into a damp squib once Bulgaria, who were also due to join our green list, decided to put us on their red list. How long until Croatia follow Bulgaria’s example?
Well, thank you very much, Boris Fucking Johnson. The single most important factor in the spread of Covid in Britain was Johnson failing to seal our borders to India and keep out the Indian, AKA Delta, variant. It is HIS fault. It was Johnson what done it. Over 50k of new cases today and who can doubt that within a few weeks we will be prisoners in our own land?
Placing my broken record back on the turntable, I realise it was me agreeing with Johnson that real life had to resume, that restrictions – no one is calling what’s happening ‘lockdown’, are they? – were driving me mad. Literally. If not 19th July, when? But I reckoned without Johnson’s Big Bang approach, where he would open literally everything up on the same day and not doing things cautiously and carefully. Was I actually guilty of believing that lying toad of a PM?
How can I possibly blame Bulgaria for telling us we can’t holiday in their country? They had 94 new cases yesterday and 10 deaths. Nearly 52,000 positive cases were counted here yesterday, 49 people died and another 717 people went into hospital. Only Brazil and Indonesia are having more daily cases than we are, the latter having around 1000 deaths a day. So far, the vaccine is doing its job. Johnson has bet the house on it continuing to do so.
Presumably, the government has concluded the number of deaths it considers ‘acceptable’, as ‘a price worth paying’ for our ‘freedom’. It just isn’t telling us, but clearly the 277 people who have died of Covid in the last week are that price worth paying. They are someone else’s mothers, fathers, daughters and sons and if we’re going to be allowed to get shit-faced in a crowded boozer, well that’s just how it is.
So now we have over 50k new cases today BEFORE all restrictions are ended. These numbers are rising with the restrictions we have now. What the actual fuck will they look like when everyone can do what they like?
An expert, the sort Michael Gove thinks we have too many of, said on TV today that if we was to devise the most effective way of bringing about a dangerous Covid variant that would grow rapidly and escape vaccines, then he would done exactly the same thing Johnson did. He’d abandon all restrictions, including social distancing, mask-wearing, recommending people work from home, being forced to endure table service in boozers and all the other things that spread Covid. But we’re going to do the same thing as the Dutch: we’re going all gung ho and who is to say that, like the Dutch, we will end up closing nightclubs and putting restrictions on bar opening just before we lock down again in the autumn.
One thing that’s certain is that nothing’s certain. We thought that this year couldn’t be worse than last year and thanks to the genius of science, at least less of us are dying. But the normality of 2019 still feels a very long time ago. I’m afraid normality might look just as far away this time next year, too.
