WHEN my yoga teacher suggested returning to in-person classes from September, I was pleased to think of sharing the experience ‘live’ again. His email encouraged booking soon as places were limited, and I assumed he was factoring in social distancing. In fact, I arrived to a room filling rapidly, with mats placed close together. I felt a rising panic, explained how I felt, and left, hearing the teacher say, ‘if anyone else feels nervous …’
I pondered this walking home. Was I the only ‘nervous’ one? Was the visceral anxiety I experienced as the room filled up, over-reaction? Clara Hickman describes how easily most people locked down in March 2020, this ‘crowd behaviour’ giving us a useful sense of belonging at a time of crisis.1 The same phenomenon occurred as restrictions lifted: one or two people appearing mask-less in Tesco means others follow, until wearing a mask can seem abnormal. My yoga discomfort was largely the anxiety but some was about behaving differently and positioning myself outside the crowd.
The nation had the usual ‘back to school’ message in late August, with, this year, an opportunistic ‘back to work’ added on, snappy three-word slogans being in vogue. It was as if everyone had been away for the summer, not just the kids, and working from home was a thing of the past. Well, no actually. Way back in spring, we knew April 2022 was the earliest we would return to probably only partial face-to-face work. NHS employment – of course in surgeries and hospitals still requiring PPE – provides stark contrast with a frequently posted image of cabinet ministers sitting shoulder to shoulder round a table, unmasked.
The coronavirus has not gone away. The weekly infection rate is back to January levels, and about one million people have long Covid. Apart from no distancing at yoga, and prolonged exposure (90 minutes) to each other, there was no attempt at ventilation. We know that infection occurs through airborne transmission, a fact that should surely promote the wearing of face coverings. It should also surely promote investment in improved ventilation systems in buildings used by the public, but any recommendation for that, in schools for instance, has been ignored.
There’s not much news of variants, but presumably the delta is still doing the rounds. There’s not much news about the variant’s top symptoms either, and the fact that Covid can look a lot like a cold these days. There are undoubtedly fewer deaths now, but the current numbers would result in an excess of 40 000 deaths annually, and it is now known that UK citizens who die of/with Covid lose on average ten years of life.2 Are we experiencing another herd immunity attempt? This week’s Covid report shows this was indeed the choice taken by the government when lockdown was delayed in early 2020, undoubtedly resulting in a larger than necessary death toll.
We hear we’re in for a ‘perfect storm’ this winter, with flu of higher incidence and greater severity adding to the Covid infections. I’ll stick with the mask and keep my distance. And I’m back in my attic for online yoga classes.
1 From Mask Wearing to the Run on Petrol: The Consequences of Crowds – Byline Times
2 Covid by numbers: 10 key lessons separating fact from fiction | Coronavirus | The Guardian
Penny Merrett, Sheffield
IN my lifetime there have been a number of worldwide disasters – amongst which, bank collapses, terrorist attacks, tsunamis, nuclear reactor fires, volcanic eruptions, AIDS, war, famine. While I have been aware of them, they have not really affected me personally – it has been like I have been observing them from the outside, concerned but not affected.
Covid-19 has been unique in that it has totally affected the whole world, including me. I guess you could point to global warming as having a similar global impact but, so far, it has not affected and changed my life in the way that Covid-19 has. In terms of my physical life, in terms of my mental/spiritual health, in terms of work, in relationships with other people – in all these ways this pandemic has affected my life – and the lives of everyone else.
But when I look at what has gone on elsewhere, I am (selfishly) happy I live where I do. Following the news, it has been plain to see that the UK, while quick off the mark with vaccines, has the highest rate of infections, deaths and hospitalisations in western Europe. While it may have surged ahead with the vaccine programme, in terms of Covid outcomes it is way behind its neighbours. Why is that? Because, I suggest, the decision was made this summer to abandon all precautions and to vaccinate young people after they had returned to school.
Looking where I live, in France, we have vaccine passports, face mask wearing in public places and the vaccination of young people which started during the summer holidays. Our infection rate is a tenth of the UK’s as a consequence. We routinely present our vaccination certificates when entering a bar or restaurant, we wear masks in the supermarket, we keep our distance when greeting people (a significant matter in France where we are accustomed to bisous on arrival and departure). And while there has been some protest, generally it is all being observed by the majority of people.
Eighteen months ago, the deniers and the anti-vaxxers and the ‘libertarians’ all reckoned that people would not observe restrictions on their behaviour, that people would revolt against confinement and rules of behaviour. People would get bored, they said, and fed up with it – some reckoned it was not worthwhile initiating lockdowns, or social distancing rules, or hygiene precautions because of this.
Here the proof is present that informing people, making the things people want to do dependent on their conformity, being reasonable and reasoning, works. Largely, here, common sense has prevailed against the misinformation and fake news that said taking precautions against Covid was a waste of time and effort, that people would not accept it.
Along with the rest of the world my daily life has been changed, and will continue to be affected, by the current pandemic (and the subsequent, forecast, pandemics). Accommodations, doing things a little differently, vaccinations, it all has an effect. None of it is impossible and it enables us to carry on living – which I guess is the point of it all …
Jonathan Merrett, Sallèles d’Aude
IT’S been a mere eighteen months, but there’s no doubt much has fundamentally altered in our lives since lockdown began in March 2020. I’ve been trying to put a finger on my main impression of this time and come up with first, how little we know; and second, growing authoritarianism, irrationality and illiberality as a consequence.
Courtesy of Pretoria’s friends in the Chinese Communist Party we still have no clue where Covid-19 came from. The initial South African reaction can only be described as panicked. Bans on physical recreation, hawking and economic activity on the margins of sheer existence, the purchase of certain items in supermarkets, and smoking and drinking alcohol had no direct connection to the virus. Pictures of empty ICUs supposedly resulting from the drinking ban are hard to credit because a great deal of trauma is caused by drug taking; and that certainly never stopped. This sums up assumed causality. Measures are taken, infections and deaths drop, and a link is supposed. But it may be partial or even non-existent. Inference or ignorance?
Creating a ‘state of disaster’ with draconian regulations stunned South Africans into acceptance of whatever manipulation came later and suited the ANC’s controlling agenda. The context has been a set of statistics that are solemnly broadcast, and clearly false. We edge towards 90,000 official fatalities; but excess death figures are around a quarter of a million.
The president has appeared regularly in televised ‘family meetings’ to announce tinkering with lockdown levels, curfew hours, restaurant opening times and liquor sale restrictions. But personal proximity is the problem. Mass gatherings have not been adequately controlled ‒ the second wave was set off by matric raves ‒ and now we are at level 1 again. Up to 2,000 people are allowed at outdoor gatherings and the indoor limit has expanded to 750; all neatly timed to suit ANC electioneering ahead of local government polling. Who’s counting and what do these figures mean anyway?
New heavy-handed pressure is coming from vaccination fanatics. As a columnist recently pointed out, if vaccination provides such wonderful protection why are the vaccinated so keen to impose their view on others? I’ve had both my Pfizer shots, but support the right of others to opt out. The term vaccination apartheid is taking on another meaning and there’s imminent danger here of second-class citizenship.
In March last year some people argued the world had changed for good. Those of us who thought that view prescient were vastly outnumbered by those who blithely assumed a return to normality. Instead, there has been a tectonic shift.
Things I might have done occasionally in my pre-Covid version of a locked-down life continue to feel perilous. As for others, I wonder if I shall ever do them again. As news of the virus was being suppressed in Wuhan, we stepped off a ship after an eleven-night trip. Was that a last holiday of any sort, because it’s hard to conceive even now of venturing much further than our immediate neighbourhood.
Christopher Merrett, Pietermaritzburg