Covid#29 - Finding whatever merriness I can this Christmas

At the weekend, Boris made his most depressing announcements so far, putting swathes of the south-east of England into a new tier four, telling them they must not mix with anyone beyond their own households over Christmas whilst telling the rest of us we could spend just Christmas Day with loved ones, rather than the five days he’d previously said he would allow us.  It was his response to the news that a mutated version of coronavirus is now doing the rounds in the south-east, wreaking havoc with up to 70% greater transmissibility than mark one, causing infection rates to spike there once again.  So far, Bournemouth (my home) and the south-west remains in tier two.

It’s no secret that I resent all the rules (I’ve written about it before).  The Prime Minister’s previous announcement of his five-day festive window for up to three households to form a celebratory bubble left me fuming.  It’s not the government’s place to tell people who they can and can not see or to interfere in Christmas plans.  Neither is it really its job to protect us all from a virus and prevent us from dying; it doesn’t go to such extreme lengths to prevent deaths from other illnesses from seasonal flu to HIV, and many of us would be outraged if it did.  It’s the responsibility of each of us to listen to wise advice, assess the risks to ourselves, show respect for others and behave sensibly. 

When governments step in, they diminish people’s sense of personal responsibility and they fuel mistrust in others.  I can’t abide the view I’ve heard time and again – sometimes laced with barely-disguised racism – that restrictions are justified because certain people can’t be trusted to behave responsibly.  Foolishly, ministers also lay pretty huge traps for themselves.  They tie themselves in knots with rules that become more and more confusing as they keep changing and that can not be enforced, and there’s anger on social media.  Consequently, some demand clarification and yet more restrictions or even another punishing lockdown with all its devastating implications, whilst others become more resentful and increasingly ignore the rules.   

‘Damned if they do and damned if they don’t,’ say the commentators, which may be true, but ultimately, when politicians declare that no level of deaths is acceptable, they mislead people, unreasonably raise expectations and doom themselves to failure.  It’s also patently untrue: tragically, nearly seventy thousand people have now died in Britain, yet no-one is protesting or rioting.  Despite what Boris and his government think, we are mature enough to accept the grim reality of a pandemic. 

Perhaps the strongest argument for any restrictions is the protection of the NHS – to avoid it being overwhelmed by Covid patients requiring hospital treatment.  Politically, it’s a difficult case for Boris and his government to make, however, lest it imply their own neglect of the health service.  Moreover, it risks raising our expectations of a health service that is already vulnerable and could never fully cope with a pandemic on this scale.

Mine is a controversial point of view, I know, but it’s not one I hold without sympathy for anyone who has suffered or is suffering with Covid, for anyone who has lost someone dear to them or for anyone who is now trapped alone.  There is an inevitability to death during a global pandemic but of course, every loss is an awful tragedy to those who are bereaved.

I don’t believe I’m being naïve or reckless either.  I know the risks I take; importantly, so do the people with whom I spend any time; and I completely respect anyone’s choice to not see me.  I take sensible precautions, continuing to respect social distance, limiting the numbers of people I see, meeting others outdoors, wearing my mask and washing my hands.  Above all, I am grateful for my good fortune (so far, at least) in living in a part of the country that has fared better than most, at avoiding the virus and staying well and healthy.

I’m now in Devon, at my mum and dad’s, where I’ll spend most of the next week and be joined by my uncle for Christmas Day.  I had no expectations when I spoke to them after Boris changed the Christmas rules.  We agreed though that fortunately, we’re all in good health and none of us is especially vulnerable.  My uncle and I both travel from single-person households and not from multi-person households so arguably, we’re at less risk than much larger three-household bubbles.  We won’t see anyone else.  And none of us really understands how there would be less risk in us getting together for just one day instead of a few more.  We’re responsible grown-ups; we know our circumstances, we know the risks and we’ll take care of ourselves and each other.

No-one is having a particularly joyous Christmas.  Even with the company of family, surrounded by sparkling decorations and looking forward to a traditional feast, Covid feels close at hand, I’m aware of friends, family and others spending Christmas alone or bereaved, sad and fearful, and there’s a flatness to this festive season.  I am deeply sorry for anyone who can not enjoy the Christmas they hoped for but hope no-one will resent those of us like me doing the best we can, even if we are breaking the rules. 

After the year we’ve all endured, can anyone really be blamed for finding whatever merriness they can in this Christmas?

It's the goldcrest that did it

The day hadn’t started well.  The milk was off, my coffee went down the drain, I dribbled toothpaste down my shirt and the dog threw up.  By the time my partner and I were ready to go to the shop for fresh milk, I was a three but it was the goldcrest that did it.  I’d never seen one in the garden before yet there it was, a lively ball of green and creamy brown with that dazzling gold crown.  I went to snap a picture but my phone slipped through my fingers, smacking on the drive, the screen a web of cracks.  I cracked too. 

There’s a scale that autistic kids are taught for times like this and this was me at the top of the scale – a five – screaming, shouting, stamping on the shattered phone, leaping furiously into the car and speeding off who knows where, my partner forgotten on the roadside.  Except really, we both knew where I’d go.

Though I’m invariably almost surprised to find myself here, it’s always to the Head that I come.  Once, thousands of years ago, it was a bustling port; today it’s a reserve of nature, peace and tranquillity, broken – to my shame – by my slamming car door.

I start with an angry march down a path with fields – an ancient burial ground – to one side and the water of the harbour to the other.  There’s a burning, churning ache in my stomach and my chest, my heart is pounding, my breath ragged.  I notice nothing until a kestrel catches my eye, hanging in the air, wings beating with an electric crackle, eyes fixed.  I stop and watch until it swoops away, harried by nervous swallows.  My breathing slows.  My heart quietens.  I’m a four. 

Further on, there’s the yaffling cackle of a woodpecker, the bouncing flight of green and red before it lands in a tree, clinging to the trunk, disappearing behind a bough, reappearing.  Hide and seek.  I’m not yet ready to laugh myself, but a knot unravels in my chest.  Three.

On I walk – slower now – to the water’s edge where a heron stands one-legged in the reeds listening to the prehistoric call of egrets from the woods.  A redshank struts through the shallow water, carefully planting its garish legs, probing the mud with its beak.  Distant terns plunge into the harbour.  Minutes pass.  I sigh and feel my shoulders relax.  Two.

From there, my path takes me through woodland where I’m followed by an ever-amiable robin.  A thrush sings loudly, dunnocks hide, tits dance among the branches and from somewhere, there’s the staccato call of a chiffchaff.  I pause once more.  There’s an almost imperceptible flittering in a birch; a tiny bird with a dazzling gold crown perches on a twig, its head cocked, beady black eye on me.  As the bird and I watch each other, a loving, forgiving hand slips into mine and I smile.  I’m a one.  It’s the goldcrest that did it.

Covid#28 - A reminder that we are not invincible

This must surely be the first time in human history when our response to an emergency such as coronavirus has been to impose lockdowns on entire countries.

When Spanish Flu swept around the world after World War One, there was no nationwide lockdown.  When the first person died in Britain in May 1918, war took precedence over suppressing the virus.  Suggestions (and there were some) that the sick be advised to stay at home and that people should avoid large gatherings were dismissed.  Hospitals were overwhelmed; nonetheless, while many theatres, dance halls and cinemas closed, there was no widespread lockdown and pubs remained open, large crowds attended football matches and people continued with their everyday life.  Some wore anti-germ masks, but they weren’t compulsory.

I wonder what someone from 1918 would make of our twenty-first century reaction to coronavirus.  

Sudden, widespread death seems to have become unconscionable to us.  Numbers of potential deaths are used to scare us – the first lockdown began after half a million deaths were predicted and this second one was ordered after newspaper headlines screamed projections of four thousand deaths per day.  Each day, the latest number of recorded deaths is reported and grimly, we watch the death-toll rise.  Like never before, we watch television with sadness as strangers talk about the tragic deaths of their loved-ones and fearfully, we reflect on death’s proximity to us all.  Above all, we have become familiar with the concept of ‘excess deaths’ – the idea that only so many deaths should be expected, perhaps even that only so many should be tolerated.

In March, the Prime Minister even talked of families losing loved ones ‘before their time’.  It’s a strange phrase that also reveals a lot about our attitude to death, implying that we have ‘a time’ when we should expect to die and even that we know when it is.  It goes hand-in-hand with the seemingly inexorable rise in life expectancy that has come with our advances in science and medicine, improved diet and nutrition and better living standards.  We should expect nothing less than to achieve that grand old age of eighty-one.

Perhaps we’ve even started to believe we can control death.  After all, we’ve eradicated smallpox, engineered antibiotics to fight infection, created drugs to suppress viruses like HIV, dramatically improved treatments for many cancers, halved the number of deaths from malaria since the turn of the century and achieved immunisation of vast populations against diseases like tuberculosis, polio, meningitis and measles.

Personally, I’m fortunate to have had little close experience of death.  I’m forty-three now so it’s not surprising that my four grandparents have all passed on but I enjoyed nearly forty years with two of them who lived into their nineties.  An aunt, Marion, died last year and sadly, I lost a good friend, Luke, to cancer in his early-twenties.  Many people of my generation would have experienced a similar, low tally of deaths – probably much lower than our grandparents would have had at our age.  We don’t have to confront death with the regularity they and their forebears did; maybe we don’t even have to contemplate it in the same way.

Coronavirus, a plague out of place in the twenty-first century, forces us to contemplate death.  And our instinct, born of the last century, is to control it, diminish it, defeat it.  One hundred years ago in Britain, 228,000 people died of Spanish Flu.  Today, we can’t countenance the scale of death that perhaps ought to be wrought by a rampaging pandemic while it runs its course and enough of us build that herd-immunity.  Neither, however, can we bear the measures that might keep it in check.

Education is central to our vision of continued progress and a better future and we value it too highly for schools, colleges and universities to close.  Our health services, as miraculous as they would seem to someone suffering from Spanish Flu one hundred years ago, creak ominously under the strain of a global pandemic for which they could not be prepared.  Many of us object to any infringement of our liberties and wouldn’t tolerate the surveillance that has made track-and-trace systems effective in more authoritarian corners of the world or harsher enforcement of restrictions and tougher penalties for rule-breakers.  Our way of life depends on the strength of our economy – even our health and well-being are inextricably linked to it – so deserted high streets, shut down businesses and increasing unemployment are deeply damaging.  Rising government spending to support business, industry, families and individuals is both imperative and unaffordable and we fear its impact on future generations.  Socially, we depend on pubs, restaurants, coffee shops, cinemas, theatres, leisure centres, clubs and gyms.  Not only do we struggle to cope without them but our mental health suffers while they are closed.  For many, a Christmas during lockdown would be unendurable.

Our comfortable, sociable, affluent, liberal twenty-first century lifestyle and society just isn’t up to the imposition of a lockdown – let alone repeated lockdowns.  Some scientists even say that this is not the terrible pandemic the world is still due; that could still come in the coming decades.  What then?  We will surely have learnt from this historic experiment that the lockdown is not the answer.  As awful as any unexpected death is for the friends and family of its victim, perhaps we need to reassess our grim relationship with death and accept that tragically, from time to time, something unexpected emerges and takes many of us.

Perhaps Covid19 is our terrible but necessary reminder that we are not invincible.

Covid#27 - It's back

By the time I wake up tomorrow, England will be in lockdown again.  A dejected sounding Boris announced his plan on Saturday with all the enthusiasm my students have for their weekly RE lesson, and Parliament voted for it this afternoon.  I’d written to my MP, Tobias Ellwood, urging him to vote against it but it wasn’t to be. 

In the spring, I was lucky to spend the first lockdown with my parents in Cornwall; this time, I shall be at home, alone in Bournemouth.  This lockdown won’t be the same though, as school will remain open so my daily routine won’t change much and I’ll be as busy with work as ever.  Obviously, there are things I will miss.  Momentarily earlier, I caught myself planning to invite friends for dinner in the next week or two, then realised that is off the cards for the foreseeable future.  My dad turns seventy at the end of this week and I had intended to spend the weekend with him and my mum in Devon, hopefully also seeing my brother’s family.  There were going to be fireworks!  All that is cancelled too.  Plenty of people have had to change their birthday plans this year so dad’s philosophical about what will be muted celebrations, but of course it’s disappointing.  I’ve become quite a gym bunny in recent months and I’ll miss my workouts there but I live by the beach so I’ll give running along the prom another go, although motivating myself on cold, dark November mornings will be challenging.  I’m fortunate; I doubt this second lockdown will have a significant impact on me.

It is, however, going to have a devastating impact on many, many other people.  I see that in some of the students in my class.  This week, they’ve talked about the after-school activities they won’t be able to do, the friends they won’t be able to see, the grandparents they will miss and their concerns for their parents’ jobs.  Their fear of the virus is heightened once again and anxieties are raised; one boy, for example, has become withdrawn and quiet, struggles to focus on his learning, and is visibly worried.  A friend who lives with his aged parents broke down in tears as he recalled the loneliness, fear and depression he felt during the first lockdown, which he now dreads once again.  Tonight, there will be people all around the country – far less fortunate than me – trying to prepare themselves for another lonely month, separated from family and friends, seemingly trapped in their homes.  For many, the cost of another lockdown in terms of their well-being and mental health will be unbearable.

The cost to young people is particularly calamitous.  They have already suffered educational chaos with the six-month closure of school to most, the dismal handling of their exam results and their imprisonment in their halls on their return to university.  Working in industries like tourism, leisure and hospitality – all of which have been hit hard by Covid restrictions – many young people have found themselves unable to work, furloughed or unemployed.  Those entering the jobs market for the first time find it impossibly challenging.  I’ve listened on podcasts to an aerospace graduate devastated at not even being able to find work even in supermarkets and the despairing mother of a young man with mild learning difficulties who lost the critical job he had and loved in his local café.  I could have wept.  Even after-school sports activities, with the vital social opportunities they offer, are to be shut down, despite that the same children are able to attend school together.  Like so much of the Government’s response to this pandemic, it makes no sense.  It is young people that are bearing the disproportionate cost of this crisis and their plight is only worsened by another lockdown.

It doesn’t stop there either; the eye-watering debt we are accruing will be largely born by the young people who are already paying so much, and probably by their children and grandchildren too.  I am terrified by the economic cost of the pandemic: falling GDP, rising unemployment, the collapse of so many businesses and runaway Government spending.  Of course, some financial support to individuals, families and business is imperative to maintain a functioning society, economy and way-of-life, but difficult choices soon need confronting (if they didn’t already) as it becomes increasingly unaffordable.  Another lockdown only exacerbates an already dire economic outlook for future generations.  Just as there is a moral duty on us all to slow the spread of coronavirus and protect lives, so there is a moral duty to guarantee the economic well-being of our children and grandchildren.

Readers of my previous Covid-themed blogs will know that I’ve never been a fan of all the Covid rules (‘Stop telling me what to do!’ was the title of one from June).  I did, however, accept the restrictions of the first lockdown, necessitated as they were by the scale of the emergency brought about by the initial onslaught of coronavirus.  I was wearing a face-mask long before it became compulsory; I respect social distance; I clean fastidiously; and I do all the other sensible things I can to help suppress the virus.  I have, however, become increasingly resentful of the Government’s laughably unenforceable attempts to control so much of my life.  Take my gym, for example.  It is surely one of the safest places anyone could be: equipment has been shut down to ensure social distancing; screens have been erected between each machine; we all follow one-way systems; staff are forever cleaning; and I and other responsible gym-goers spray and wipe down everything like never before.  As far as I’m aware (and surely I would be), there has been no outbreak of Covid at my gym.  Despite this and all the measures that have been taken, we’re told we can no longer go there.   I take exception to being treated like a child – grounded by Boris like a naughty boy.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m a grown-up!  Give me information about the virus, the risks and the measures I should take, and then trust me to do the right thing.

If there really is a need for a second lockdown, it’s because of the Government’s failure to get a grip of this crisis.  It has lurched from one short-lived plan to another, its rules have become more and more confusing as they have changed so quickly, and its messaging has been hopeless.  NHS Test and Trace is a long way from the world-beating system we were promised six months ago.  500,000 tests per day by the end of October were promised by Boris, yet only 280,000 were carried out, while in mid-October only 15% of those tested were getting their results within twenty-fours (as he had also promised they would), and less than 60% of close contacts were being successfully traced.  The Government has no effective overall long-term strategy to manage this crisis, which is why we now risk a cycle of repeated and catastrophic lockdowns.

Boris was right to say that a second national lockdown would be a disaster and it’s one that can be laid firmly at the door of Number Ten.

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.

Covid#23 - Finding our way to that happy bar at the bottom of the mountain

Lockdown is over.  Sort of.

Since Boris’ latest announcement – just over a week ago – we’ve been gradually feeling our way out of isolation; not entirely sure what we’re supposed to be doing or how far we’re supposed to go, experimenting a bit, pushing the boundaries of the lockdown like mischievous children, breath bated, waiting to see if the ‘R’ rises. 

Apparently, Boris refers to this as ‘unlockdown’ and like much of his speech the weekend before last, no-one really knows what that means.  There’s been a lot of criticism.  ‘Stay at home’ was replaced with ‘Be alert’ but none of us is sure of how to do this, what we should be alert to or how to be more alert than we are usually.  Coronavirus doesn’t come with flashing neon lights and bells so we can’t look out for signs of it and presumably, if being alert was as straightforward as avoiding anyone with obvious symptoms of fever or a cough, few people would have ever contracted it.  Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland swerved this message completely, cautiously sticking with ‘Stay at home’, while those of us in England feel like they’re watching us, lab-rat like.  For many of us though, it came as a relief to be told that we no longer had to stay at home.  The once-a-day limit on exercise is at an end; we can drive elsewhere for a walk; we can lounge outdoors in parks or on the beach; garden centres and golf courses have reopened; we can meet another person outdoors and sit with them at what has become the normal social distance. 

I don’t exactly have sympathy with Boris but I think this phase was always going to be difficult politically and to communicate.  The near-complete lockdown we endured from late-March couldn’t last until all risk of the virus has gone – at best, a vaccine won’t be widely available for another year and it may take much, much longer to develop one.  The economic effect of the pandemic is already severe; continuing shutdown would be catastrophic.  Isolation was already becoming hard to endure – harder for some than others – and the impact on the emotional wellbeing and mental health of many continuing to suffer it would be dire.

The risk now may be close to the lowest it’s going to get until there’s a vaccine.  Crucially, the NHS wasn’t overwhelmed by the peak of the pandemic and there is capacity within hospitals to cope with any new surge in cases.  When Boris spoke, the ‘R’ (the reproduction rate of the virus) was below one (it may have risen closer to one now) and last week, sampling revealed that approximately one in four hundred of us has the virus.  The easing of restrictions could be delayed by another three weeks or another three months, but little would have changed and the risk may not be much lower.  It’s understandably hard for Boris to persuade everyone that now is the right time for ‘unlockdown’ though – and not just because he’s Boris.

Many of us took to lockdown far better than we ourselves or anyone else thought we would and, as all the graphs, charts and reports of the falling ‘R’ attest, we’ve seen the positive impact, so there’s apprehension about changing it.  Some of us are relieved, eager to seize the opportunity and personally happy to take some risk; some are more tentative; some understandably fear the risk and aren’t yet ready to emerge; and for others, the risk is too great and they must continue shielding themselves.  Being an SEND teacher, I share Boris’ enthusiasm for a five-point scale (he unveiled his as part of his address) so perhaps, our various responses to this phase of the emergency can be summed up thus:

5	Socialising with other people in larger groups.  Visiting family or friends in their homes.  Never wearing a mask.  Not always observing social distance.
4	Driving elsewhere for walks or exercise.  Visiting family in their gardens.  Sometimes meeting more than one other person.  Not always wearing a mask.  Popping to the shops more regularly.  Maintaining social distance.
3	May be returning to work or continuing to work from home.  Going outside more often and for longer.  Strictly maintaining social distance.  Wearing a mask.  Shopping only once or twice each week.  Occasionally meeting another person outdoors.
2	Continuing lockdown – isolating at home with family, exercising once per day, shopping once each week, working from home or not at all.
1	Shielding at home – elderly or vulnerable.

I’m a four.  I’ve had long walks along the prom at home in Bournemouth or driven for up to an hour for a walk somewhere different and followed that with a run later in the day.  Usually, I’m on my own but I’ve met a small number of friends for a socially-distanced glass of wine in their gardens or a catch-up at the beach and I’ve sat in the street for a drink with neighbours.  I’ve popped to a local shop a couple of times to supplement the weekly big-shop.  There may be occasions when I swiftly pass someone at less than two metres but most of the time, I try to keep to those social distancing guidelines, and I’ve bought myself some masks.

To most of us, ‘five’ seems reckless.  Otherwise, we shouldn’t be too judgmental of each other for our response; everyone’s is reasonable, personally responsible and sensible.  Boris himself has talked about ‘common sense’.  It’s a nebulus thing that makes us anxious.  Each of us probably thinks we have generally good common sense (allowing for occasional lapses) but we can also be suspicious of each other’s – even untrusting.  Usually, our ‘common sense’ decisions have minimal effect on others, but now they are responsible for keeping the virus under control; now they could have life-and-death implications.  Nonetheless, there was always going to come a time when, with due regard for others, we make our own decisions about the level of risk we are prepared to take and we take more personal responsibility.  For many of us with concerns for individual liberty, it’s also imperative that we defer less to the state.

Boris talked of the route back down a mountain being the most difficult and dangerous.  We sustained terrible, tragic losses on the way up, but we made it to the peak, and in doing so, we understood the magnitude of our shared endeavour, we looked out for each other and our trust in each other grew.  Like standing at the top of a mountain though, we all know we can’t stay there forever so now, we’re each finding our moment to leave the summit.  Some of us throw ourselves into the descent with the eager courage and ferocity of a black-run skier whilst others of us find a gentler, slower path.  We know there will be many more sad losses and undoubtedly, there will be bumps and obstacles.  Our faith may be shaken by a few rogues who try a more dangerous route, seemingly going too fast with less regard for others.  We’ll keep looking to our scientific sherpas for advice and support and we may need to pause and wait a while before continuing.  However, with the trust in each other and the hope we discovered on the way up, and with the same mutual respect, consideration and support, we’ll get ourselves to that happy bar at the bottom of the mountain.

Covid#22 - VE Day

Today, for the first time in weeks, disease and death wasn’t the headline news; VE Day was a much-needed distraction from coronavirus.  Scenes of busy hospital wards and locked-down care-homes were replaced with those of street parties: bunting strung across house-fronts, Union Flags flying proudly, people coming together to dance in their streets – albeit sensibly spaced two metres apart.

Interviews with workers on today’s frontline were replaced with interviews with those who had served on another or on the home-front and remember Churchill’s announcement of the German surrender, the crowds outside Buckingham Palace, the cakes at their street parties seventy-five years ago.  The sad tears of those bereaved by Covid19 were briefly replaced with the happier memories of victorious fathers returning to their families after months of fighting or imprisonment abroad.  Grief and despair at the rising number of deaths today was replaced with remembrance of the far greater number who gave their lives in a far greater fight and gratitude for the fortitude and sacrifices of that wartime generation.

Many didn’t celebrate today.  Doctors, nurses and carers on today’s frontline were too busy caring for the sick and dying, engaged in today’s fight against the virus and to save lives.  There were those worried for elderly and vulnerable friends and relatives, or anxious for someone sick or in hospital.  Some were alone and fearful for themselves.  And, of course, there were those in mourning. 

Equally, not everyone celebrated seventy-five years ago.  Then too, many felt terrible loss; some were too haunted by the devastation of the blitz, the battlefields of Europe and the appalling suffering of the occupied across the continent; others were exhausted by years of terror, fear, fighting and loss; and all knew that victory in Europe was less a full-stop than a comma – the war in the east remained to be fought and then came the struggle for a lasting peace.  As Churchill said, celebration would only be an interlude, ‘a brief moment of rejoicing’.

Just for today though, perhaps we could be forgiven our distraction from those realities.

Comparison of our modern-day emergency with that my grandparents’ generation endured and the battles they fought isn’t right.  The tyranny and the horrors they confronted and the sacrifices they made in total war far exceed our own challenges and remain unimaginable to us.  What has become more imaginable though is the sadness of separation they too experienced, the solidarity and strength they found in their communities and their eventual joy in coming back together with family and friends.  The words of Vera Lynn’s ‘We’ll meet again’ have taken on greater poignancy.

There was great hope today in the way neighbours came together in defiance of the virus.  There’s great hope too in the coming together of the world’s scientific community to learn more about coronavirus and find treatments or a vaccine.  We’re fighting a very different enemy today but still there is a great sense that we’re all in this together. 

For all of us, VE Day wasn’t the celebration it was supposed to be.  There was no sharing of our homes and gardens to fancy-dress wearing family and friends.  There wasn’t the same sharing of food there would have been without fear of infection.  We didn’t gather around the barbecue, debating whether or not the burgers were properly cooked and toasting marshmallows.  There weren’t any drunken dances with neighbours.  No-one got to enjoy my Eton mess!  It wasn’t just the lockdown that subdued our celebrations though; how can you really party when over thirty-thousand people have died in the past few weeks and you know thousands more will die?  No-one was really in the mood for a proper knees-up.

Some people talk of parties when all this over, on the other side of the lockdown, once coronavirus is finally beaten, whenever that will be.  There will be gratitude, relief and joy, just as there was seventy-five years ago: gratitude for sacrifices made and the incredible efforts of workers on our frontline, relief that it’s all over and joy at seeing friends and family once more.  Celebration may be hard though.

626 people died in the UK today, bringing the total to 31,241.