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The Government & Media has already set all of us on a downward spiral. The complete shutdown must be lifted now if we are to find a minimum-pain way out
FEAR rules everything in life, even though we are not conscious of it most of the time. The greatest fear of all is the fear of death, and when the prospect of a by-pass or a short route to dying comes into view, that fear can push us to do and accept very questionable things.
A little bit of fear can be a good thing. A civilised society does after all need to have and maintain basic rules.
But what the Government and the Media have been and are now doing to this Country goes beyond sense and logic.
The constant flow of negativity and highlighting of personal tragedies framed in a way that makes the idea that this is happening to everyone right now has created mass hysteria. It is only the presence of the walls that surround our homes caging us all in like rabbits in hutches that currently keeps our thinking penned in the same way as our bodies currently are.
The damage being inflicted on the economy by the shutdown is now increasing by the minute.
Across the Country, business owners are contemplating the reality of the Government’s game plan in stunned silence.
Yet the majority obsess about 8pm clap-from-your-doorstep sessions for the NHS that the media would have us believe has become obligatory for everyone to take part in. It will be frowned upon or considered to look churlish if you don’t willingly take part or become involved.
The Government chose to pursue a lockdown as a kneejerk measure, influenced in no small part by sensationalist approach that the Media has been taking.
The Government has made very poor decisions that already contradict themselves. It is clearly failing to think through the implications of much of what it is doing beyond tackling Coronavirus-linked illness itself.
Meanwhile the media is taking every opportunity to sow fear throughout the population by dwelling on what journalists believe it is in their interests to suggest that the Government isn’t doing well, rather than there being even the merest hint that they can, could, would or are capable of holding our political leaders intelligently and considerately to account for what they are getting wrong.
Neither the Public nor the politicians are in control of the direction of public policy as things stand.
The Media is using fear fuelled by subjective opinion to keep people glued to their non-stop Coronavirus Show, whilst the unbridled influence they have means that they have become in many ways the de facto leadership of this Country. It is neither democratic nor can it be in any way held to account.
The fervour that the Media has whipped up and the choices that the Government has subsequently opted to take does not follow any overarching strategic reasoning.
For instance, the shutdown of the kind we are experiencing has seen nearly a million people sign up for Universal Credit in the past two weeks, whilst a not dissimilar number have signed up to volunteer to help the vulnerable and the NHS.
The sheer number of forced-to-be-idle people who are now being put to work going back out to help others rather than doing their own jobs makes a mockery of the whole idea of laying people off because it’s safer for them to be at home.
However, short-sighted, fag-packet-derived policies from the Government and Media manufactured ideas about what people can or should do to avoid Coronavirus – have for no good reason – become accepted as the only way to do things – just because of the source from where the information has come from.
Subsequently, we now have a National workforce which will be reluctant to go back to normal working – simply because so much uncertainty is being promoted about what is to come.
Regrettably negativity of this magnitude does damage that will last.
No matter how positive and constructive the Government and the Media could and should be, from the moment the decision to lift the lockdown is taken, getting people back to work, into the shops, our businesses functioning and transport running anywhere close to where it should be to be considered ‘normal’ is likely to take many months – even if the employers, the businesses and the transport companies still exist at that point.
The latest news today about 100,000 Coronavirus Tests being done daily by the end of April and then the suggestion that once there is an antibody test people will be able to get a ‘Immunity Certificate’ issued – whilst everyone else stays at home is leading to false hope for people and for communities, whilst the long term strategy for both is a short-fused time bomb which is going to go off in weeks if not months.
With Field Hospitals now opening like the Nightingale in London and medical resources coming into place, this is the time to relax the Shutdown, restart the engines of everyday life around the Country and replace what was only ever a suggested need for being shut up at home completely with guidelines and procedures for people to follow if they feel unwell.
If the Shutdown isn’t lifted now, the damage that it is going to done to the economy and therefore to many lives is going to be something that even now it is very difficult for many people to comprehend.
Even with the Shutdown lifted now, it will take time for a feeling of normality to return.
The decisions made by the Government and the stories that the mainstream media has told have already caused irreparable damage to businesses and households, and put the fear of God into people when they simply should have not done so.
People will not find it easy to resume normal living at a restart anytime after this. With the time it will take to accommodate the impact that Coronavirus alone is going to have on society either way, there is no time to lose.
The restart of life after Shutdown is overdue.
image thanks to newsthump.com
