COVID-19 DIARIES. DAY SIX- WHAT'S GOING ON?
Watchet, Somerset, UK, 28th March 2020 23:05
The Spanish government has just announced tougher restrictions on the movement of people with only essential workers being allowed to leave their houses. Over here, BoJo has signalled that a tougher lockdown might be necessary.
The measures implemented by governments everywhere are the stuff of nightmares for those of us who value freedom, of choice, belief, speech and assembly. The fact that we are not out demonstrating in the streets is a reflection of the truly extraordinary circumstances that we are in. In the 90s there were huge demonstrations in the UK because Michale Howard made illegal the gathering of 20 or more people to listen to sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats. I mean, there were riots over that! Yet, this time, we have all accepted as necessary to maintain our health and our society intact.
There is a danger of a breakdown in social order. We are hearing minor reports about people spitting and coughing at police officers, council workers and emergency services. I have heard of some reports of food riots and looting in Southern Italy but these haven’t appeared in the mainstream media yet. I hope they are just isolated incidents and not the shape of things to come.
We, in the First World, are struggling enormously to manage and contain the COVID-19 outbreak. If we, with all our money, science and welfare systems cannot control this, then what hope is left for developing and underdeveloped countries? Imagine this thing running loose in favelas in Brazil or shantytowns in Nigeria. The prospect of that is frightening.
If that was to be the case, I hope that we are able to look after our fellow humans and that we don’t revert to the selfish and uncaring way that we have treated refugees in the past. We should be sharing our resources, financial and, more importantly, scientific. We need to do this if we are to survive as humankind.
I was saying in previous entries that this outbreak is an opportunity to learn and change. We might need to reboot our system. But let us start afresh, let’s not restore our system from an old corrupted backup.
OneLove OneHeart
Today’s choice of music is Marvin Gaye: What’s Going On
World-wide confirmed cases: 659,367
World-wide deaths: 30,475
World-wide recovered: 139,304
UK confirmed cases: 17,312
UK deaths: 1,019
UK recovered: 135
Source: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6