Springersrock
Nice chicken! That second photo is fascinating.
It is interesting to hear all the lockdown opinions. I was mortified by the Trump supporters protesting against lockdown so recently. It just seemed like they had a death wish and were so stupid. And yet now I have that bit more sympathy with their viewpoint (!!)
I do want lockdown to be eased slowly simply because by doing so, you spread out the burden on the NHS and there's more chance of care for vulnerable people who do have some chance of surviving. We are so stupidly overpopulated and there is the potential for our numbers to shoot high very quickly. And the shock of lots dead in a short number is a lot for HCP's to cope with. God knows what some of them have seen in the last few weeks.
But I definitely do want it to be eased and now. I have been thinking of how furious people are with the Tories for botching this. I am also left wing but I keep thinking, no one could have stopped this. This virus is a nasty, sneaky thing which spreads very successfully asymptomatically. If it was possible to stop it, the Chinese with their authoritarianism would have done so. They were so draconian about shutting everything down. We have Heathrow and Gatwick and big, busy cities. I am growing more convinced that places like Germany and South Korea and Norway etc. will ultimately have many more deaths too. Maybe not as many as us but it just takes one asymptomatic super spreader to set off a new outbreak and by the time various people in that chain have been identified and tested, it's away again. It's going to be constant fire-fighting for the next couple of years. And ok, then let's say we get a vaccine, which seems very likely - we already know they don't work on everyone. Quite often they aren't that effective in the oldest and weakest and that is who this virus is targeting. We have to accept at some point that many more will die and it's unfair and sad and horrible but it's also life.
At the moment, we are literally, as a society, running around flapping at the idea of something new killing some of us, trying to find a way to stop it, as if we have that kind of power. And whilst that's totally understandable and it has been frightening, it's been such a recent thing that we've had any control over death at all. For most of human history we've had to live knowing we're extremely vulnerable. Go into any Victorian cemetery and it's mind blowing how many mothers lost multiple children. And it's horrible because who wants to be in a situation where we can't save everyone? It's gut-wrenching. But we are mortal. We are human. Viruses and pandemics are part of life. We are at least in a much better situation than we were in 1918. We have at least some ability to save some lives. And we can learn lessons for the next one. Antibiotic resistance, anyone? That will happen and it will take far more lives.