Last night, on Sky's Paper Review, Susie Boniface, of the Daily Mirror, gave another example of how proponents of lockdowns are allowed to get away with thoroughly illogical statements unchallenged.
She claimed that, because people were not abiding strictly by existing restrictions, a new lockdown was inevitable. Indeed, it seems like that is what is coming, as Boris Johnson makes yet another U-Turn. She said that it was necessary, because people did not seem to understand what the risks of a pandemic entailed. The example she gave was of people stepping out in front of a bus. If you do that, as an individual, she said, its you that is taking the risk of being knocked down, not anyone else. But, with COVID, she claimed, its not just you stepping out, but you are pulling a hundred other people into the road behind you. That is absolute nonsense.
Every individual is free to make their own choices - or at least they were until governments withdrew such civil liberties by introducing lockdowns. I am as free to decide whether to take the risk of going to the pub or a restaurant, as I am to choose whether to step out into the road or not. In making that choice, I will bear in mind the risks to me. In the case of COVID, because I am over 60, and suffer from asthma, my assessment is that I am not prepared to take the risk of coming in contact with anyone from whom I might contract the virus. That is why since march I have been self isolating, and avoiding such contact. Indeed, it makes me furious to see on TV lots of elderly people, often not wearing masks, out in town centres, when there is no need for them to be. But, it is their choice to put their lives at risk by doing so, though I might have some thoughts about my taxes going to pay for their hospital care, for the potential self-inflicted damage they are risking. It is their decision to take that risk, and no one should seek to limit the freedom of younger people, who are not at risk, in order that they can do so.
It doesn't stop me going out for a run, into the garden to exercise, or to meet with my son and his partner. In fact, it didn't stop me going to collect some things from the local Screwfix a while ago, where they have measures in place that avoid contact. It doesn't stop me taking the dog for a walk. All it requires is sensible measures to avoid contacts that might lead me to become infected. I have no desire, therefore, to prevent anyone else from making such choices. I certainly have no desire to prevent millions of young people, and those under 60 from going to work, going out to pubs and restaurants and doing all the other things that young people usually do, because, contrary to what Boniface says, their choices are totally irrelevant to my own well-being. Their own risks from COVID are next to zero, and, in fact, precisely because of that, if they do go out and mingle, they will safely develop herd immunity, which is the most effective means of killing off the virus itself.
In fact, the choices those younger people make do affect me, but not in the way Boniface means. If all those younger people, the backbone of the workforce, decide to lockdown, or if that decision is made for them by the government, then it means that all of the goods and services that I, and everyone else, depends upon, do not get produced, or get produced in smaller quantities, and at higher cost. That is far more likely to impact on me than any risk to me from COVID from them presents! Indeed, as it appeared that another lockdown was likely, I began again stocking up, to be able to last over the Winter, some weeks ago. Many other vulnerable people will not be so lucky as to have done that.
To say that younger, healthier people's decisions on what activity to engage in necessarily affects me, is complete nonsense. It doesn't. There is no reason why I or any other person in the vulnerable section of the population needs to come in contact with them. If we do so, it is purely out of our own choice to put ourselves in that danger, not the responsibility of the young to protect us from it. My youngest son has a serious nut allergy. Boniface's argument means that I shouldn't eat nuts, because having nuts in the house could have exposed him to them, and caused an adverse reaction. But, again, of course, that is nonsense. All that was required was to ensure that he kept away from the nuts, and that we didn't contaminate anything else with nuts that he might come in contact with. He has been fine. Nor would I expect society to ban nuts and nut products as the sensible solution to a minority of people having the possibility of dying from an allergic reaction to them. Instead we simply enable those with the allergy to avoid contact with nuts and nut products.
That is all that needed to be done with COVID. It simply required the government to enable the 20% of the population at serious risk from it to isolate for a few months until such time as herd immunity was developed in the rest of the population as it safely went about its business.
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