Opinion : ‘R’ you ready for the lockdown to be lifted?

It’s such nice weather outside indeed the sun is shining and the birds are singing in the trees.

But sadly everyone is locked down sitting at home for fear of spreading the dreaded lurgy.

It seems that even if the full lockdown is lifted the powers that be will still be imposing social distancing rules in one form or another as they are afraid of an increase in the ‘R’, i.e. reproduction rate, of the virus which could lead to a second wave of infections.

From what my good self can see the only problem with lifting the lockdown restrictions is that we only seem to find out what has happened to the ‘R’ factor about 7 to 14 days (the time for the infection to show in a person) after the change actually happened thus making any actions to reduce the ‘R’ value somewhat too late.

Aren’t we lucky to have so many distinguished scientific experts who can analyse the data models and guide us through the pandemic safely even if those attending some of the advisory meetings did so under a cloak of anonymity and, according to some reports, political advisers have been present at meetings who could have put their own (potentially unqualified) input into the discussion.

So how is the national response to the crisis going?

Well, only today it was announced that the 4,000 bed Nightingale hospital in London is to be mothballed and kept as a backup after treating just 51 patients. Did they perhaps get the modelling figures wrong by at least 4,000 or so?

Then of course there is the debacle of the 100,000 tests a day, the lack of PPE for front-line workers, the high death rate (over 28,700 at the time of writing) and the apparent strive for ‘heard immunity’ before a U-turn and the imposition of a lockdown to stop the spread of the virus.

In my opinion, so far the leadership and decision making during the crisis has not been in the mould of Churchill (Winston), in fact it has been more like Chaplin (Charlie).

Yet, despite all this my good self has full confidence in the decisions being made at national level.

At least the slogan of ‘Stay at home‘ -> ‘Protect the NHS‘ -> ‘Save lives‘ has worked. In fact it seems to have worked too well and a recent poll on a national news site found that many members of the public now too scared to leave their house.

So, are you looking forward to the end of the lockdown and being able to venture out into the brave new Covid filled new world?

Let’s face it we have to venture out from behind the walls of sanctuary and enter the big wide world sometime as we can’t stay at home relying on online food deliveries forever can we?

If people don’t go out then businesses are likely to fold, indeed the albatross of ‘social distancing’ requirements is likely to hit profits of businesses badly anyway without a drop in customer throughput if the public simply remain safely at home.

At least we can be sure the experts, as shown from their previous decisions and advice, are right on the pulse of things.

As for my good self, well, yours truly will be working to a new slogan of my own creation which goes as follows ‘Stay at home‘ -> ‘Save yourself‘.

You can go out it you like, indeed do let me know what the new world is like, however my good self will be playing it safe – for a while at least.

What do you think?

My blogs are published regularly here on the WycombeToday.com website.

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