PESTILENTIAL CONFUSION

   

We are all in a terrible tizzy, hardly knowing which way resolutely to march. Our ‘experts’ tell us to practice social distancing – keeping at least 2 metres from our fellow human beings and avoiding all social intercourse, abandoning cherished relatives, friends, shop-keepers and bookies. Our favourite barbers, chiropodists, shrinks and cosmetic surgeons fall off the radar. Very rarely we venture out to the local pharmacy (deliveries not readily available), and we otherwise live in an impersonal e-universe communicating efficiently enough via the web, mobile or Skype. But it is all weirdly unnatural.

We are strictly confined to our homes, fortunately ours is warm and cosy, but others will have many difficulties. An overcrowded house hosting several generations can be a ticking time-bomb, replete with strained relationships! Supermarket deliveries, made by politely obliging drivers, sustain us golden oldies and swell our already excessive waist-lines.  Somehow, we all must make the best of it and invoke the legendary spirit of Dunkirk, the Blitz and the Armada, so that we finally prevail.

Boris looking decidedly peaky

So far, we have not received much Churchillian inspiration. Our proto-Winston, Boris Johnson, has sadly himself been laid low by the coronavirus and his recovery is slow. Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, had the virus and has bounced back creditably. The other senior ministers, Michael Gove, Dominic Raab and Alok Sharma flounder in this unfamiliar territory and struggle to find the right encouraging note. Her Majesty has dutifully tried to buck us up, yet she is a self-isolating elderly lady, far from the front-line. The expert health officials are guarded in their predictions and unspecific about their plans. Meanwhile the UK economy faces meltdown if this crisis is a prolonged one.

We hope for a clear plan and comprehensible policies but, as in so many professions, there is a profusion of opinions from the pandemic doctors. One sect, currently favoured and identified with Imperial College, London, believes strict social distancing will check the virus and minimize fatalities. Another sect, connected to Oxford University, would tolerate some spread of the virus, with its associated higher casualties despite suppression measures, to achieve a degree of “herd immunity” protecting much of the population from this year’s virus and alleviating any recurrence. I probably mis-state the core and ignore the nuances of both positions!

Time to join the Herd, Dumbo

I have some sympathy with our politicians, not normally a deserving group. Their world is topsy-turvy; Tories have launched a state intervention programme of which Lenin would be proud. Labour’s championing of workers’ rights is almost redundant. At least we have seen the back of dismal Jeremy Corbyn though new boy (Sir) Keir Starmer no doubt also harbours many venerable socialist fantasies, after all, his parents, in ideological devotion, named him Keir after Labour founder Keir Hardie whom he rather resembles.

Keir Hardie

Keir Starmer

     

Meanwhile the world is beset by blunders and “Covidiots”. The UK was slow to gear up to the pandemic and it was unwise to allow the mid-March Cheltenham Festival to proceed, attracting thousands of racegoers over 4 days; Trump poo-pooed the virus as being like the flu and said “the crisis will be over by Easter”; The Germans and the Americans fell out over alleged “face-mask piracy” by the USA; the EU ignored pleas for help from stricken Italy although China sent aid; London parks were flooded by sunbathers, football games, and groups of youngsters; Athens enforced a draconian lockdown but street-markets were tolerated populated by scruffy traders and old-age pensioners by the barrel-full. UK police are spat at and nurses abused by louts proclaiming civic liberties.

Our benighted SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon takes the final biscuit. In her hatred of England, she rejects the name” NHS Nightingale Glasgow” for a proposed emergency field hospital, preferring  Scottish nurse Louisa Jordan’s name. The other 6 other temporary hospitals all carry the Nightingale name. It is a small, petty matter. Sturgeon does Scottish history a disservice. History remembers the sacrifices of the Scottish Highland Division at Alma and Balaclava in 1854 and we all remember The Thin Red Line, where The Sutherland Highlanders so distinguished themselves.

        The Sutherland Highlanders stand firm in the Thin Red Line

For sure, their casualties at the Scutari military hospital would have blessed the name of Nightingale as the Lady with the Lamp who hugely improved hospital hygiene and the tending of the wounded.

SMD

05.04.20

Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2020