Stay Alert – Control the Virus – Save Lives, the new government slogan.
Or at least the new government slogan for England. It seems like Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland are sticking to the original – Stay Home – Protect the NHS – Save Lives. Simple.
Stay Alert to what? A virus I can’t see? Someone invading my social distancing bubble? Someone coughing or sneezing anywhere near me? Yep, that’s me. Bad hayfever. The existential weirdness we’re all currently living with?
Control the virus? I carry hand sanitiser everywhere. My shoes now sit on my staircase so I’m not brining in additional bits of virus. And I wash my hands thoroughly after going outside. I even wipe down packaged food with a Dettol wipes, including any new packs of Dettol wipes. In the scheme of things, I really can’t do much more as an individual to ‘control the virus’.
The most I can do is Stay at Home with a daily trip out for exercise, wash my hands and do all the other stuff I’ve been doing for the last couple of months. And I’m fortunate as I’m not one of a couple of million people who have been advised to shield or be ‘cocooned’.
If notes are needed to explain what Stay Alert – Control the Virus means, it’s poor public health messaging. Stay at Home is clear. We get it. The new messaging confuses me.
What is increasingly clear is that this confused messaging, and the various bits of news suggesting what easing the lockdown might look like, has led to a significant reduction in doing all the stuff we all need to keep doing. The first part of my walk was fine. Then it wasn’t. It took a few minutes to get out of my local woods as there were people everywhere. The road leading up to the woods was jammed with cars.
Walking down past Dulwich College, it was clear that people are now meeting up, having chats, people playing football or training together. And in and around Dulwich Village, I’ve not seen so many people out and about since lockdown began. For a growing number, it seems that social distancing is no longer needed. It was a great sense of relief when I got home. As I mentioned yesterday, in 2 to 3 weeks we will see a spike in new cases. And I’m not alone in thinking this.
In the UK, we’re eagerly awaiting tonight’s announcement from Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, about what an easing of restrictions might look like. We may be allowed out more than once a day for exercise, garden centres might open, and what the plan ahead might look like including when schools might be able to reopen. Will lockdown be extended? It already has been in Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
And I still have questions which I’ve not yet seen convincing responses to:
Are we ready? I’ll need some convincing on this one
Do the numbers stack up — what’s the current rate of infection? How can this be determined without widespread community testing?
Are we seeing a big drop in infections and deaths in settings like care homes?
Would a relaxation of lockdown spark an increase in new infections as we’ve seen in other countries?
How do we do this safely and in a way that people don’t become too ‘relaxed’, many frustrated at so many weeks at home, perhaps working, perhaps furloughed, perhaps newly unemployed? The new messaging isn’t helping on this one.
And principally, if we do this too early, what’s going to be the impact on a reintroduction of full lockdown which could last for many more months?
Let’s see what tonight’s announcement brings.
So that’s it for Day 48. Stay safe, stay well, and stay home!