The media likes to run stories about people breaking the rules on social interaction imposed as a result of COVID. I have to say I am extremely relaxed about COVID Rule breakers. The media's attention on rule breakers is consistent with its usual practice of trying to find some group to “other” to blame for society's ills, and so to whip up a moral panic. It provides them with an easy story, and the more they whip up a moral panic over it, the more they generate further readers and viewers. It distracts from the real problems and solutions. When they can pick on a politician like Dominic Cummings or Boris Johnson, with his seven mile bike ride, its even better for them, in whipping up such a frenzy and indignation.
But, here is the point, why should I be bothered about other people breaking the rules on COVID. You might think, as someone in their sixties, and who suffers from asthma, I should be extremely animated at other people breaking the rules. Not a bit. I am definitely worried about the possibility of being infected with the virus, but that is why I have been in self-isolation with my household since March. By avoiding any possible contact with the virus, I ensure that its not going to bother me, so what anyone else does is a matter for them, not for me.
In fact, having suffered with asthma all my life, its not really anything new. Certain things like cigarette smoke affect my chest, and so, I have, where possible, avoided smoky atmospheres. When I worked in an office, with smokers, in the 1970's, as a shop steward, I got management to put in air conditioning units. The introduction of smoking bans in public spaces has been a good step forward, in that respect, because, for some things, like going to work, its impossible to choose to avoid smokers, but, it would never occur to me to demand that everyone else stops smoking. If they want to destroy their health by smoking that is up to them, just as, whilst I think that people who abuse and disfigure their bodies with tattoos or piercings, or people who damage their health by drinking to excess are misguided, it would never occur to me that they should not be free to make those choices if they wish.
And, everyone else in the vulnerable 20% of the population can make the same evaluation. Well, that is not entirely true, because you might be a worker who has some medical condition, or you might be over 60, but again, the response to that, as with smoking is to demand that the rules in the workplace be enforced, and that workers be enabled to do that via their trades unions, and health and safety representatives. Better still, any workers in that category should be allowed to take indefinite leave on full pay, so as to avoid contact with the virus. But, as far as general social interaction is concerned, if you in the vulnerable 20%, then it is in your own control as to whether you put yourself at risk or not.
Yes, its possible to look at the instances of people living in high rise flats, who must share lifts, or stairways with other people, but, as I wrote recently, the answer to that is a Tenants and Residents Association that can ensure that the building can be used safely by all. Speaking to a TESCO online delivery driver months ago, before all this, he told me that they do deliver to people's door, even in high rise flats, including when lifts are not working.
And, for the bulk of the population, the 80% who are not at serious risk from the virus, I have even less concern about them breaking regulations on lockdowns, which are themselves ineffective, and even counterproductive. Of course, the media seems to have grasped that increasing numbers of people are fed up with the lockdown, and have begun to see through the big lie that the government and its advisors have been telling from the start that such lockdowns are necessary because everyone is equally liable to become ill from the virus. They have started again to put out the stories about younger people becoming ill with the virus, complete with heart rending pictures of such sufferers. Yet, the reality is that the facts have not changed. Terrible as it is that some younger people have become seriously ill, and some died from COVID, the actual data shows that they are a tiny proportion, and even smaller number in absolute terms. Of the 81,669 deaths of people with COVID, just 817 were aged 15 to 44, equal to 1%. By contrast, 34,317 or 42% were aged over 85, a further 26,699 or 33% were aged 75-84, and 12,354, 15%, were aged 65-74. In other words, 90% of deaths were of people aged over 65.
Any death is, of course, tragic, but the reality is that there are more people dying, in the younger age groups, from flu than there are dying from COVID, because flu, unlike COVID, does target all age groups, and, in fact, affects the young more than the old, most of whom often avail themselves of an annual flu jab for protection. And, these large number of deaths, of often younger people, from flu, in Britain between 8,000 to 20,000 per year, happen every year, and yet we do not close down society, or demand all sorts of restriction on activities to avoid them. There is no such thing as zero risk, and any attempt to determine policy on such an impossible goal would destroy society.
The latest data again shows not only that it is almost exclusively the elderly that are the ones affected by COVID, but it also shows another huge rise in infections, and deaths in care homes, and, if we were to look closely, we would see something similar in hospitals. We know from data released a while ago that a quarter of people being treated for COVID in hospital caught it in hospital. Recent data shows that 11,000 people who went into hospital in December and January, caught COVID after going into hospital .
If the media really wants to launch a crusade about rule breaking why does it not do so in relation to the NHS, rather than demanding we all act like Pavlov's dogs in coming out to clap for it each week. Why doesn't the media take the fact that the biggest source of COVID infections is the NHS, and the related care home sector, which is also where the largest number of deaths occurs. Why does it not show some kind of moral outrage at the fact that an NHS that is supposed to protect us, is instead killing us, that basic principles of common sense that should be applied to prevent the spread of the virus are simply not being implemented, despite the billions of pounds that is pumped into the service every year.
We can all feel sympathy for the overworked and underpaid nurses, doctors and other staff working in the NHS, and also in the care homes, but the problem does not lie with them, but with the bloated bureaucracy and hierarchical nature of the NHS itself, which is failing as an institution, in the most basic of requirements. Just the simple creation of isolation hospitals and wards, rather than the wasted millions spent on Nightingale White Elephant Hospitals would have reduced infections in hospital massively. Or why not use those hospitals as isolation hospitals. The NHS says it cannot do so because of staff shortages, but staff shortages are not new. The NHS has been short of 100,000 nurses for more than a year. Of course, Brexit, means that the EU workers who previously came to work in the NHS are no longer coming, and some of those here have gone back to the EU. Another consequence of the idiocy of Brexit.
But, the lockdown of social activity, the blaming of the young, the moral panic whipped up over rule breaking by some people who, in the most part are in groups not at risk from the virus, is a much easier story for the media to purvey, rather than looking to where the real causes of the problem of COVID resides.
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