As each day passes and this ridiculous Lockdown continues, it becomes clearer that there are at least three different demographic groups with key behaviours linked to the Lockdown and the response to Coronavirus.
The first are people who either see and understand the disproportionate damage that the Lockdown has caused and is causing and includes the growing number who just want to get on with life and deal with illnesses if and when it might come.
Then there are those who are happy to sit at home indefinitely as long as they get paid, along with those who feel they have come this far and made sacrifices to get here and now want to see the Lockdown through to the point where no-one will ever be at risk from this one virus – no matter the cost.
The third group is considerably different to the other two. It contains those who are actively living in fear of Coronavirus, whether it is because of the Government programming that drove the implementation of the Lockdown, or because they have become emotionally compromised and tied into the narrative because they have either been personally or professionally exposed to the Virus. Fighting it has taken over their thinking in a very subjective and detrimental way.
That the dynamic between the groups is shifting is certain.
More people are out and about. More people want to be out and about. More people want to be back at work and want their children to be back at school.
Practicality will override selfishness. Group 2 will switch steadily to Group 1.
But those driven by fear in Group 3 are a different matter. Thinking rationally or considering ‘the bigger picture’ is not what their modus operandi is about.
Regrettably, many of the voices – perhaps all of them – who are driving the continuing fear-based reaction to Coronavirus that the Government championed at the start, are in positions of public responsibility. They have a very powerful voice that will be heard as soon as the media pick them up.
Today the NHS Confederation decided to step into that gap, insisting that the Government must get the new Contact Tracing App into use as quickly as possible. The inference being that Coronavirus cannot be controlled without it.
Sadly, any benefit that could have been derived from an app of this kind or the physical contact tracing exercise like the one the Government has now engaged thousands of paid people to administer was lost when they failed to implement it at the start.
Coronavirus is alive and present throughout the UK community. So there are no absolutes in terms of being able to monitor where and how the Virus was transmitted and between whom – just as there haven’t been for the fight against COVID-19 from the start.
It means that this is just another hollow exercise and no better than a diversion that is driven by fear to create more fear from it and keep people from resuming life and gain back to work.
People in positions of power with a public voice should know better.
The science doesn’t stack up. The Government response has been a joke. Every further attempt to scare people is making the developing economic crisis even worse.
If these people were in control of their thinking and not emotionally compromised, they would only be giving the public information that would help.
It’s time for them to do all of us a favour and shut up unless they have something helpful to say.
For goodness sake, let us make our own choices about where we go from here.
picture thanks to source unknown
Adam Tugwell 