Covid#26 - Stop telling me what to do!

I’ve been getting angrier by the day.  I am fed up of being told what to do.  I am fed up of incoherent messages from an incompetent government.  I have had enough of Covid-warriors on social media claiming some moral high-ground and preaching about what is right.

In these unprecedented circumstances, no-one can claim to know what is absolutely right and it is hard to imagine another time when we would all look to Boris Johnson to tell us what to do!  We’re grown-ups who can think for ourselves, not slavishly accept what clever people say and what we read or see in the media.  We’re suffering a pandemic of acquiescence that has reached new heights in recent months.  It’s shocking what a frightening new virus can do to us.

Coronavirus is frightening; I accept that.  In many of my blog-posts since lockdown began, I’ve tried to understand the impact the pandemic has had on so many people.  As I’ve written in different words before, it arrived so suddenly and killed so indiscriminately, it’s no wonder many of us felt safer locked-down and many still feel safer shielded or socially distanced from anyone else.  The dramatic measures taken at the end of March were necessary too; they were effective in reducing infections, slowing the death-rate and ensuring the NHS was not overwhelmed.

Not for one moment do I think we should be complacent; we must guard against a second spike in infections.  The first peak (God willing, the only peak) has passed though and it’s time to reflect more rationally on the restrictions we endured, the measures we took and the way we behave.  In the cooler light of the early hours of day, what made sense?  And what didn’t?  How much faith do we have in the politicians that led us through the first months of this crisis?

Personally, I have no faith in Boris Johnson and his partners in government.  His is a party that knew a pandemic was the greatest risk to the country; however, not only did they inadequately prepare – even when their own simulation identified the weaknesses in the system – they actively ran down the essential kit the NHS would need to protect its doctors and nurses.  Johnson himself is a man who couldn’t be bothered with the epidemic when it first emerged.  He flagrantly ignored advice to limit social contact, declaring that he continued to shake hands even in Covid-affected hospitals, ultimately threatening even his own life.  Until the likely cost was pointed out, I suspect the early strategy was to build herd-immunity, and I think that message probably and reasonably sticks in the minds of many – especially the young and healthy who are at less risk.  Testing in the community was abandoned then Matt Hancock talked about ramping it up in the very week the pandemic reached its peak.  They abjectly failed to provide the NHS with the protective resources it needed and they neglected care homes.  Advice about face-masks is vague and confusing.  We’re instructed to stay at home and we question our own instincts, yet government advisers find flexibility in the rules that most didn’t imagine existed and take a road-trip across the country.  The easing of lockdown measures seems more politically expedient than scientifically advisable; SAGE members themselves question it.  Restrictions are eased so we can meet relatives in a garden-centre but not in their own gardens.  They won’t allow more than six friends or family to meet but are obviously and rightly powerless to prevent thousands congregating in protest.  The two-metre social distance rule is thrown into doubt by the Prime Minister himself.  Schools are told it is safe for children to return then they are told to remain closed to most until September.  The R is heralded as the number we should all watch, fearfully, then we’re told it’s not so reliable.  Not only can no-one claim absolute moral authority to tell us what is right, no-one can really have any clue; confusion reigns.

Still though, the Prime Minister stands behind his lecturn and tells us what he will and will not allow.  He will allow us to meet up to six people outdoors so long as we remain two metres apart.  He will allow us to meet each other in our gardens, so long as we only enter the house to use the toilet and wipe it down afterward.  He will allow those of us who are single and living alone to form a ‘bubble’ between our households and spend the night in each other’s homes.  The media would even have us believe that some of us are now permitted by Boris to have sex with each other.  Everyone knows he has no way of enforcing these edicts and that they are being flouted left, right and centre.  If he was a man with any authority at all, his pronouncements would make him a laughing stock; as it is, I really don’t know how he dares to continue telling us what to do.

If there is any real strategy within governement, it’s painfully divisive too.  As we come out of lockdown, it’s inevitable that there will be some who want to stick to the old, seemingly safe rules while there are others who are less cautious, more prepared to test the boundaries and take some risks.  Some are the tentative skiers taking a gentle route down the mountain I’ve written about before, while others are self-assured black-runners.  We probably need some risk-takers too, to help us all learn what is possible and how to live alongside the virus.  While Johnson and his government keep up their charade of authority with all their ridiculous rules, they drive a wedge between the rule-takers and the apparent rule-breakers.

Boris had a point when he suggested we use our common sense, and he should have stuck with it, showing his own trust in us and promoting trust in each other, instead of sowing seeds of division.  Government strategy ought to be to help us understand the virus we are now living with, provide us with clear, up-to-date scientific information as it becomes available and provide us with limited, unambiguous advice – not instructions any longer.  Then, they should encourage and trust us to make our own judgements of the level of risk we’re each prepared to take, show consideration for others and find our own way to live alongside coronavirus, as we must.

We’re not complacent; we want to protect ourselves and show regard for others around us.  To most of us, some measures seem sensible: maintaining social distance, meeting outdoors, getting tested if we fall unwell and washing our hands.  There’s simple logic to them, underpinned by simple science we understand.  Don’t tell us we can see six people one week and eight people the next, that we must stay two metres away from someone until next week when it will be okay to be as close as one metre, that there are some places we can visit but not others, or who we can have sex with from one week to the next.  Give us the facts we need to make our own informed, sensible, grown-up decisions about all these things and more.

It’s no good telling us to use common sense and do our civic duty if you then undermine both along with personal responsibility and individual liberty by paternalistically telling us what to do as if we’re children.  We don’t need telling what is the right way to behave by government or by any Covid-warriors; we should be given the information we need and trusted to do the right thing.

Covid#25 - Treating each other as grown-ups

Pictures of Bournemouth – my home – have been hot news over the past few weeks.  A German friend recently returned to the UK and told me that photos of our beach had even made it into his local newspaper in Germany!  The reason: the crowds enjoying the early summer sunshine.  There’s nothing too unusual about that – photos of Bournemouth’s crowded beaches make it into the national newspapers at some point every year – but the context is very different.  This year’s influx of visitors comes hot on the heels of lockdown, amid ongoing fears of the virus.

It’s caused consternation across Dorset.  There’s great concern that some of those visitors may have brought coronavirus with them, from parts of the country with higher infection rates than those in the south-west, which have always been the lowest.  The photographs portray an apparent disregard for social distancing; the patch of sand occupied by each family is clearly less than two metres from their neighbours’.  It’s true too that it’s nigh on impossible to maintain that social distance whilst walking along the prom or down the zig-zag paths that lead from the clifftops to the beach.  Traffic is heavy and its brought inconsiderate drivers and parking infringements with it.  After weeks of cleanliness on the beaches, the amount of litter is appalling.  The behaviour of some leaves much to be desired: my neighbour had to help rescue one drunken beach-goer who fell from a rock-groyne, cracking open his head and knocking himself unconscious before he fell into the water.  Not far away, at Durdle Door, three tombstoners nearly killed themselves by jumping from the rock-arch into the sea, and thousands of visitors had to be kettled in large crowds on the beach to make way for emergency helicopters to land.

The strength of feeling locally is understandable for all the reasons I’ve written about in other blog-posts – it’s prompted by the same anxiety some have about breaking their personal lockdown and leaving their house or visiting supermarkets or sending their children back to school.  They have successfully protected themselves, they have survived; they know the virus is still out there, they’ve seen what it can do and they’re frightened of catching it.

This is where this blog-post gets controversial though; I don’t think their condemnation of all those visitors to Bournemouth’s beaches and Dorset’s beauty-spots is warranted.  I think judgement of those beach-goers and the names they’re called on social media is unfair.  I think the demands of local politicians for measures to be taken to deter them from visiting are unnecessary and the comments of one Member of Parliament who wrote that people have ‘abandoned common sense’ are patronising and offensive.

Those of us who live in Bournemouth or close to Dorset’s stunning coast are wonderfully lucky to live in such a beautiful place with such easy access to some of the country’s best beaches.  I believe we should have more empathy with those who live in greyer inner-city neighbourhoods, or those in landlocked towns without their own garden, or those who have been imprisoned on the upper floors of blocks of flats.  We should recognise our good fortune in living where we do and be happy to share it with them.  In better times, we’re happy to welcome them and to take their money – our towns thrive on tourism and without them we’d be far poorer – so in these darker times, it seems wrong to enjoy our beaches ourselves whilst turning visitors away.

Bournemouth and Poole have so many miles of golden sand that in any summer, once you’re on the beach, it’s not difficult to socially distance yourself from others.  The photographs in the press are always of the busy sections of beach close to the two piers.  If you restrict yourself to those short stretches or one of the other points where it is especially easy to access the beach, it is always crowded on a sunny day, but if you walk for ten or fifteen minutes, it’s not difficult to find a much quieter spot.  There’s nothing unusual in that, pandemic or no pandemic.  You wouldn’t find me near the piers in any summer and I’ve had no trouble socially distancing myself on a quieter stretch of beach in the past few weeks.  There may be occasional larger groups of more than six people but generally, they keep themselves to themselves and respect others’ social distance.

I understand why some people think it is too soon after lockdown to visit the beach.  They have made grown-up assessments of the risk to themselves and the people closest to them and reasonably choose to stay away.  Others, like me, live in different circumstances and reach a different conclusion.  We all take personal responsibility for our decisions and the level of risk we take.  The vast majority of those visiting the beach are not reckless and don’t deserve the names they are called on social media.  They accept that we need to find ways of living alongside the virus because it’s not going away any time soon; they know that unless they lock themselves away indefinitely, there is going to be an element of risk to everything they do for the foreseeable future; and they may have reckoned on the risk being about as low as it’s going to get.

Arguably, they have good reason to think this way.  Sampling has concluded that one person in one-thousand currently has the virus (down from one in four-hundred a couple of weeks ago), infection rates have remained relatively low with reports a couple of weeks ago of just two new cases of Covid19 across the whole of Dorset, and the R dropped below one and even now, there is uncertainty about claims that it has risen to one in the southwest, not least because of the overall low number of infections in the region.  Some worry that crowded beaches will inevitably cause a spike in cases, citing the football match between Liverpool and Real Madrid and the Cheltenham Festival early in the pandemic, but there’s no real evidence that either of those events caused localised outbreaks nor that they support a direct correlation between numbers on the beach and rising infections.  We’re told too that the risk outdoors is relatively low.  A study quoted by Professor Peter Openshaw last weekend found that of 320 outbreaks, only one originated outdoors and other scientists have said that you are highly unlikely to contract the virus by only walking past someone, even at less than two metres.  It’s a view that seems supported by the basis for the new track and trace system – only those who have been less than two metres from a confirmed infection for fifteen minutes or more are deemed at enough risk to self-isolate.

Of course, social distancing remains the sensible precaution but even this isn’t as clear-cut as previously, with the Prime Minister openly questioning the two-metre guidance and suggesting it could be less.  Nonetheless, to most of us, it does seem reckless to ignore it, so promoting it on our busy beaches ought to be the focus of our local authorities, using council staff and volunteers to persuade visitors to spread out along the miles of sand, rather than condemning visitors and looking for ways to stop them from coming. 

If you’ve lived in the area for a while, you know that traffic, inconsiderate parking, litter and irresponsible behaviour are not uncommon on the sunniest, warmest days of the summer.  There are days every year when we are incredulous at the traffic-jams on the main road into Bournemouth; parking is always a nightmare on those days and we locals know it is best not to drive anywhere; bins regularly overflow and disposable barbecues abound; sadly, news reports of people diving into the sea from Durdle Door or injuring themselves in other ways are not uncommon.  Perhaps this year, in the circumstances and after so many weeks of calm and quiet, this all seems especially shocking but I’m not convinced it has anything to do with coronavirus and I think it is disingenuous of council leaders and other politicians to conflate these particular challenges with the pandemic.  They manage them every other year and, whilst their services and staff may be unusually stretched and face rare challenges this summer, I don’t understand why they can’t address them better this year.  Take the litter-issue for example: if social distancing requirements make it impossible to collect litter, how have our household bins been emptied regularly throughout this emergency?

Libertarians and human rights activists would make other legitimate arguments against stricter restrictions; indeed, they might question all the restrictions that have been imposed on us.  They might ask why some people should have right of access to the beach while it is denied to others and they would contend that the state has no place directing us how to behave in order to stop becoming unwell.  Whilst some measures may have been necessary to prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed, that danger has passed.  Boris himself may well fall into this camp and feel more comfortable providing information and advice than issuing edicts.  He’s alluded to as much in his trust in our common sense.

In deciding how we each respond to the pandemic, emerge from our lockdown and live with coronavirus, we must all consider the risk to our own health and those close to us and we should be considerate of others around us.  We should also treat each other as grown-ups, accepting that others will make different choices, taking responsibility for them and the risks they take, and we should respect their decisions.  There remains so much we don’t know about coronavirus that we may even need some people to push the boundaries, test it and take some risks.  They are the confident, seemingly courageous black-run skiers I referred to in an earlier blog-post (#23).  Like pioneers, maybe the risks they take will be proved foolhardy but equally, they may prove justified and help us all learn what we can do and how we can live through this pandemic.

Covid#24 - Living alongside coronavirus at school

Gradually, the lockdown eases further, with Boris announcing in the last week that more people can meet together outdoors including in private gardens; outdoors markets and car salerooms can re-open with other non-essential shops re-opening in a couple of weeks; and nurseries should re-open while pupils in Reception and years one and six return to primary schools.  There are lots of caveats: social distancing must continue, retailers must adapt so social distancing can be promoted and respected, schools must adopt myriad new practices to protect families and staff, and it all depends on the R remaining below one and on rates of infection and death continuing to fall. 

There’s plenty of scepticism.  Was the latest easing of restrictions rushed to deflect from awkward questions about Dominic Cummings’ misguided trip to Durham?  How different is ‘the tests are being met’ from ‘the tests have been met’?  How wise is it when we remain at level four on the alert scale and the new NHS test and trace system is far from fully operational?  How guided by the science are political decisions when one SAGE member (Prof. Calum Semple) refers to them as ‘brave’ and warns that the pan is still at risk of boiling over, adding, ‘We need to get it down to simmer before we take the lid off, and it’s too early,’ and epidemiologist, Prof. Sian Griffiths remarks that if scientists were in charge of decisions, lockdown would probably not yet be eased?

The distinction between what Boris can control and what he can not is becoming more stark.  He can legislate for business, retailers, schools and other organisations, but he relies on individuals to use their own judgement and common sense and to take reasonable personal risk and responsibility for our behaviour.  He has little choice after Dominic Cummings took his family and his own infection on a roadtrip across the country – on instinct.  For the past fortnight, we’re only supposed to have met one other person from outside our own household in a public place, but many of us have convened in larger socially-distanced groups on the beach, in parks and even in each other’s gardens.  Boris’ talk now of ‘allowing’ groups of six people to meet in gardens is laughable.  He won’t allow us to go into each other’s houses except to use the toilet or even to have sex with someone who isn’t a member of our own household, but we all know there is no way all his latest edicts can be enforced and it remains to be seen how closely everyone will comply with them.  He seems out of touch with reality, and his government’s authority over each of us is shaky at best.

The re-opening of schools to more children has perhaps been the most controversial of the measures to ease the lockdown.

For one of my class’ Citizenship lessons, I asked students to read a news feature about schools re-opening to more children, analyse the arguments for and against, and reach their own conclusion in preparation for a short debate we then had on Zoom.  It’s the sort of thing we do regularly when we’re in class together – keeping up with current affairs, learning about the wider world in the news and discussing the issues they raise.

They proved a microcosm of wider society, with mixed views.  One student wrote, ‘schools shouldn’t re-open because of the risks but I think we should, otherwise it will be a lot harder getting back into that routine’.  On one hand, they said that children need to learn and see their friends; they need to get back before it becomes too awkward; and those in transition years should get to say goodbye to their teachers and friends.  On the other, they recognised that the pandemic hasn’t ended so it is too soon to return to school and that they could continue learning at home where it’s safer.  None of them commented that they enjoy being at home, although I suspect that may be a factor for one or two of them.

The anxiety and caution among teachers, parents and children is understandable for all the same reasons that many are still apprehensive about coming out of lockdown in other ways.  The past three months have been traumatic and frightening; we’ve all watched as an unexpected, invisible and silent killer has appeared in our midst, striking indiscriminately and taking tens of thousands of lives.  We’ve not known when it might arrive in our own neighbourhood or who might bring it, so we’ve hidden, shielded ourselves and survived.  We’re afraid of emerging lest it lurks close at hand and strikes us down yet.  It is no wonder then that many fear sending those who are the most precious to us and of whom we are most protective – our children – back to their classrooms.

There are other reasons too for people’s apprehension.  We were angered by the failure to equip the NHS properly so we worry that the same might happen in schools.  We saw the neglect of care homes so we’re anxious for the implications for children and school staff of a similar disregard of schools.  There is still so much we don’t know about the virus; while children seem to be the least vulnerable to it, can they still carry it and pass it on to each other, their family members and their teachers?  It’s imperative that schools model all the social distancing expectations that children will face beyond the school gates, but we’re unsure of the practicability of this, especially among our very youngest children who may not fully understand and who will naturally want to play, hurt themselves, become upset and need comforting.  We need reassurance that systems for monitoring of infection rates and the new test and trace processes are effective, yet they remain largely untested, and those wary scientific views give us the jitters.

At the same time, however, we can not keep children away from school indefinitely; the effect on their education and their longer-term futures could be catastrophic.  Moreover, as the sages in my own class acknowledged, it is not just the learning that children are missing out on that is a concern; it is the routine and practice of learning that makes them better at it.  It’s worrying too that the closure of school to many has a disproportionate effect on disadvantaged, poorer children – those without access to a computer and the Internet, those living in overcrowded homes, those whose parents are less educated themselves and lack confidence in supporting their children’s learning at home – and that the gap between them and their peers will grow.

Perhaps, after all these weeks of lockdown, the risk will not get much lower than it is now; another three weeks or another three months may not make much difference.  There may also be evidence from other countries that schools can operate safely without having a negative impact on the R.  Slowly, therefore, we are coming to terms with a difficult new reality: for the foreseeable future, we must learn to live alongside coronavirus, including in our schools.

The decision to return the very youngest children – those least likely to understand and practise social distancing - to school and nurseries has been widely questioned.  Could they become vectors for cross-contamination between households?  There is a certain logic to their return: the disease is far less dangerous to them; their parents are likely to be of an age that also leaves them at less risk to it; and we know that early years education – social interaction and the development of early communication skills, for example – are critical to continuing success at school.  On the other hand, their experiences and opportunities will be very different – even limited.  Meanwhile, older students’ secondary schools remain closed to them, despite that they could reasonably be expected to understand and practise social distancing, and many – believing they are at less risk, perhaps – are meeting each other out of school anyway.  Certainly, groups of teenagers on the beaches and in the parks of Bournemouth are not uncommon.  Inevitably, it was a contentious decision; if it had been mine, I may have started with older students returning to school first, with the youngest following later.

Schools – their teachers and children – must adapt and will be very different places.  It's a challenge to school leaders and teachers on a scale that surely hasn't been seen for decades, if ever, and I, for one, have renewed respect and admiration for headteachers and my teaching colleagues everywhere as they confront it.  Good teachers are resourceful, adaptable, imaginative, creative, optimistic and positive, always with the best interests of children as their priority.  We may need to tap new reserves of all those qualities in the coming months and we will need to continue learning ourselves and tweak our plans and the approaches we take, but I have no doubt we can rise well to the challenges we face.

My own school welcomes a limited number of children back to Reception, year one and year six on Thursday.  Classrooms have been cleared of all but the absolute essentials those children will need: gone are any soft furnishings; gone are any balls; gone are many of the toys they would otherwise use for stimulation and social interaction; gone are most of the books; gone is the notion of sharing.  Instead, they will have to get used to limited interaction in tiny classes of just one or two; one-way systems; restriction to their ‘bubble’; staff in masks, aprons, gloves and visors; temperature checks and regular disinfection of everything.  We were given a stark warning yesterday: You must behave as if you have Covid.

It is going to take a lot of getting used to.