We have a decision to make. To be optimistic or to be pessimistic about the Covid unlocking on Monday.
I know people who tell me that we'll all be fine because so many of us have been double-vaccinated. I even know one person who tells me Covid isn't a threat any more - the Delta variant ("Which Originated In India," as everybody adds) may be more contagious, but it just gives you a bad flu-equivalent.
And any future variants will just be plain-vanilla snuffles, she insists. Like that creaking upstairs in the haunted house is just air bubbles in the pipes. Or rats. The wind. Okay. No wind. So: heat on a still day, warping the window-frames. Something. Anything. Obviously.
I'm a pessimist. There's a lot of Covid around, and Covid mutates. The government's replacing "restrictions" with "guidelines", but that just makes it our fault if we disregard the "guidelines". [As in: the government's no longer taking responsibility for telling us what to do.]
Seems to me that the government has caved in to pressure from corporate lobbies - tourism, hospitality ("hospitality industry" reminds me of "military intelligence"; isn't it an oxymoron?), airlines - to open up. Future historians, if there are any, will add this detail to their histories of our static economy. [Static as in: all our legacy pre-covid industries are too big to fail and must be held up, even if they do block the new.]
It's a kind of almost pleasing irony that the NHS test and trace app is telling people to stay at home. We've built a piece of tech that has the legal clout to keep people safe. Less pleasing that employers are pushing for front-line most-vulnerable workers to be made exempt from mandatory self-isolation, but - yeah, right. What's a snuffle between co-workers, eh?
Optimism is dangerous. Optimists rush into crowded bars, restaurants, etc, and celebrate.
But pessimists - pessimists wonder how long it's going to take before all the tables are free.
I know people who tell me that we'll all be fine because so many of us have been double-vaccinated. I even know one person who tells me Covid isn't a threat any more - the Delta variant ("Which Originated In India," as everybody adds) may be more contagious, but it just gives you a bad flu-equivalent.
And any future variants will just be plain-vanilla snuffles, she insists. Like that creaking upstairs in the haunted house is just air bubbles in the pipes. Or rats. The wind. Okay. No wind. So: heat on a still day, warping the window-frames. Something. Anything. Obviously.
I'm a pessimist. There's a lot of Covid around, and Covid mutates. The government's replacing "restrictions" with "guidelines", but that just makes it our fault if we disregard the "guidelines". [As in: the government's no longer taking responsibility for telling us what to do.]
Seems to me that the government has caved in to pressure from corporate lobbies - tourism, hospitality ("hospitality industry" reminds me of "military intelligence"; isn't it an oxymoron?), airlines - to open up. Future historians, if there are any, will add this detail to their histories of our static economy. [Static as in: all our legacy pre-covid industries are too big to fail and must be held up, even if they do block the new.]
It's a kind of almost pleasing irony that the NHS test and trace app is telling people to stay at home. We've built a piece of tech that has the legal clout to keep people safe. Less pleasing that employers are pushing for front-line most-vulnerable workers to be made exempt from mandatory self-isolation, but - yeah, right. What's a snuffle between co-workers, eh?
Optimism is dangerous. Optimists rush into crowded bars, restaurants, etc, and celebrate.
But pessimists - pessimists wonder how long it's going to take before all the tables are free.
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