No More Weeks of Lockdown?
Today is Friday. Boris Johnson is going to say some stuff on TV on Sunday. Since the UK government is a complete shitshow, the bulk of it has been leaked, discussed and speculated about already. Everyone has made their plans, and their plans involve going out. The government are supposedly intending to do what a few other European countries are doing and ease the lockdown a little bit. Germany are doing it, the Bundesliga starts back up next week. Denmark are doing it, but let’s ignore that Denmark had eight deaths today, and the UK had six hundred and twenty six. People seem to have taken these leaks and speculations about a speech (that hasn’t happened yet) to mean the whole thing’s finished. Pandemic over. Mainly because we’re sick of sitting around.
Today is VE day, which honestly I’ve not realised is a nationally celebrated thing (but sure, Nazis bad, no arguments). Outside my living room window my upstairs neighbours have been barbecuing and drinking for ten hours. In the middle of this, there was an actual street party down the way, with a table in the middle of the road, people sitting around and boozing.
I played some board games online. I’m sick of it too. I don’t even watch the daily briefing any more, just skim the death numbers afterwards. They’re still very high.
Schools are allegedly starting to go back on June 1. Ireland released their lockdown-easing plan last week, schools were off the table entirely until September. My office has emailed saying people are going to start coming back in on May 18. Monday week. I don’t think this will actually happen, but the fact that we’re ten days away from it and nothing has come out to the contrary is worrying. Do they live in some kind of imaginary world where nobody shares a surface, or a tap, or thinks, I have to talk to so-and-so about something and it’ll look pretty silly to stand two metres away from them while I do it?
Am I mad? I don’t see how anything has changed from early March. There’s a contact tracing app on trial on the Isle of Wight. The government made up a target for testing, pretended to meet it for one day just before the deadline, missed it every day for the following week, then doubled the target. They are children cramming for the exam at the last minute.