Once you understand that the government is wracked with uncertainty and isn’t sure what to do in the long term to cope with Covid-19, then, and only then, does its current policy on social distancing make sense. Otherwise it merely seems like collective madness.
Until Covid-19 can be deemed low risk due to medical breakthroughs, social distancing will be the “new normal” in the United Kingdom. Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, even went so far as to say earlier this week that hugging friends will not be possible.
When pressed for a timetable, Hancock added: “Well really, to get to the point where this is totally sorted, it’s when we have a treatment or a vaccine. Those developing a vaccine think that they should have it on stream for this autumn.”
Autumn seems like a desperately optimistic time frame for a vaccine which his yet to be proven effective and safe, never mind for it be made available nationwide. Yet within the government’s Plan to Rebuild, Boris Johnson admits: “While we hope for a breakthrough, hope is not a plan. A mass vaccine or treatment may be more than a year away. Indeed, in a worst-case scenario, we may never find a vaccine.”
This is the context in which we must understand current, and apparently future, government policy on social distancing. It’s patently absurd. Long term social distancing is a fantasy.
A government minister has told the British people that they will not be able to touch another person outside of their “household” for (he blindly hopes) around six months. For many people that means touching no other human beings for (we hope) around six months. That is insane. Matt Hancock is flailing around reactively because the government just doesn’t know.
There is already nationwide non-compliance and this will increase exponentially. Single people are not going to want to go six months without a hug, a kiss or having sex. People will want to see their family, not one at a time and not necessarily in public. Children will interact with their friends and forget all about this distancing nonsense. We must stop living in this lockdown-induced fantasy world.
At some point we need a calm, realistic and grown up discussion about balancing and mitigating risk and ensuring quality of life, especially for children and the young. We need a national conversation about how realistic it is to maintain social distancing indefinitely and whether a more sustainable approach is necessary. We cannot continue forever to be dictated to by a prime minister reeling off executive orders in a presidential television address.
According to current government policy, we will be imposing social distancing on children. In any setting this is a risible aspiration. Are school staff and parents supposed to tell off children for playing with each other? Are we to scold five year olds now for not complying with social distancing rules? We must put a halt to this dangerous and deluded thinking. What a warped generation of people we would create were we to follow this through.
Only 31 people under 40 and with no underlying health conditions have died of Covid-19 in English hospitals. Yet we are going to tell twenty-year olds that they will lose, at best, six months of their lives but likely far longer than that. Many of life’s most pleasurable activities will be ruled out because of social distancing. It’s a long time not to be able to live your lives.
Then there is the notion of the government telling hospitality businesses that they can open and will receive no support in the long term but must accept rules that limit their customer base. This will create many unviable businesses. How on earth is this going to work?
Currently the government plan to exit the lockdown and recover from the pandemic is based on an open-ended commitment to nationwide social distancing in every aspect of our lives. This is underpinned by a refusal to countenance the idea that there is an acceptable number of infections and fatalities to be balanced against seriously negative consequences of the “new normal”.
Sorry, but no. A vaccine may take a very long time. It may never come. So we may end up having to consider “acceptable levels of infection or mortality” at some point. It’s not as if such judgements haven’t been made before. Whether it be thousands of soldiers dying on the whims of a general or the acceptance of thousands of deaths from car accidents.
The government’s alternative is to overturn the lives of every British citizen. Many aspects of ordinary life will be banned, including on our private property. There is no consideration of the impact on our quality of lives, on our liberty, nor on the happiness, health and wellbeing of the nation.
Social distancing is a delusion in the long term. We are human and we need to be free to connect, to engage, to touch and to love. You live in the short-term reassurance of your fantasy if you wish. Yes, enjoy staying two metres away from all human beings potentially forever because the government says so. Yes, tell me how school children will follow these rules. Or young people. Or anyone.
We must all come to our senses soon. We can’t live in a society where the government dictates to every citizen how closely they can physically interact. When the lockdown ends there will be a period of social distancing and general wariness. Eventually, unless we hear credible news that a serious breakthrough is coming very soon, social distancing will break down.
There’s not a damn thing the government can do about it.
